


I Should Live in Salt

by catthedoodlecatcher



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amity Blight Needs a Hug, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda Angst, Bisexual Disaster Luz Noceda, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gay Amity Blight, Hurt/Comfort, I Love My Babies, Oblivious Luz Noceda, Romantic Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Strangers to Lovers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, fantasy/human, fluff with plot, lumity nation rise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:56:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26026828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catthedoodlecatcher/pseuds/catthedoodlecatcher
Summary: Amity Blight is many things but unprepared is not usually one of them. But then she's dumped into the human realm by unknown forces and is told to stay put until who knows when.-AU where Amity ends up in the human realm and meets Luz. Together they uncover the mysterious circumstances in which Amity was sent and promise to help each other out. But when they start falling for each other, things take an unexpected turn for everyone involved.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Lumity - Relationship, Luz/Amity
Comments: 247
Kudos: 1215





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so i've had this idea for a little while and I've been ITCHING to write it. I love canon divergence once something has ended but I literally can't wait for the show to end in order to write this because a) I don't want it to end (;-;) and b) I am impatient lmao. 
> 
> This is also 1000% self-indulgent but I really love the idea of what if Amity had ended up in the human realm instead of Luz ending up in the Boiling Isles? Idk i just think it's fun! 
> 
> ALSO I have tried my best to include a few Spanish phrases (bc Luz and her mother are Latin-American!) but I haven't ever been given the chance to study Spanish so if something isn't right please let me know and I will edit it! I've honestly tried my best but I would love feedback/corrections if needed :)
> 
> Anyway, happy reading and I'll see ya in the end notes x

It’s dark and cold; the rushing sensation is so intense that her ears are popping mercilessly and there is no time to even think about swallowing. She doesn’t know what’s happening, where she is, how she’s going to get out of here. She can’t see. She can’t think.

She’s moving through air.

Everything goes black.

-

“Oooh no this is bad this is bad she’s not responding”

Amity slowly regains her senses, motion flooding back to each part of her body gradually. She feels extremely relaxed, for some reason, and heavy. _Tired. I’m really tired. And why does everything ache?_

“She looks like she was on her way to an anime convention or something“

“Luz this isn’t the time for joking.”

“Lo siento Mami”

_Is that…code speak? What the grom is going on?_

Suddenly Amity feels herself being lifted off the ground by a pair of strong hands, bridal style. She’s limp, like a fire noodle. Fragile. Dimly aware that everything around her sounds….unfamiliar….strange….she squints and opens her eyes. Just a little.

And then she screams. And then she’s dropped.

“Mija! I’m so sorry, you just surprised me! Are you okay? Do you want us to call an ambulance?”

Looking up, the scene snaps into view. Despite everything, Amity still prides herself on being impeccably sharp. The surroundings are unfamiliar: a col de sac of small brown houses, a shack probably filled with questionable items, a cloudy white sky threatening rain at any given moment and a small crowd of people gathered around her resting placing of concrete pavement. Sitting up once more and wincing, she glances down at herself and sees that she’s almost definitely twisted her ankle but that every other part of her body is okay. She’s okay. But anxiety is flooding her system flushing her red. _Mum and Dad are going to murder me when they see this._

“I’m fine”, she tries smiling wide but it sits funny on her face and probably makes her look slightly crazy. The pain is really starting to hit but she doesn’t want anyone’s help or pity, especially these strangers who seem to speak in a code language. That can’t be a good sign.

The crowd starts to disperse apart from the two people closest to her. One is an older woman, probably in her thirties, with thick brown hair tied into a bun and red glasses that perfectly frame deep brown eyes. Crouching next to her is a younger girl about her age who has similar features. The only thing that truly separates them is the length of their hair (the younger girl’s is much shorter). The nervous grin on her face, too. That’s different.

“We’re taking you to the hospital”, the older lady smiles gently and Amity immediately can tell she is well meaning, “So they can take a look at your leg. It looks like you fell quite heavily on it”.

Amity swallows already feeling her walls, having momentarily lapsed with confusion, starting to form around her again. “I’m honestly fine. If you just point me in the right direction I can take myself”

The younger girl frowns. “Who’s gonna pay for your medical bill? We’re honestly happy to take you, my mum’s a nurse, unless your parents are here somewhere?” She shifts closer so their faces are lined up. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

Amity feels indignant. And angry. “I’m fine,” she snaps, making to stand, but when she puts the pressure on her left leg everything goes black again.

-

“Where’s your mum?”

“She’s gone to buy you a hot chocolate. We were gonna get you a coffee but you weren’t awake so we couldn’t ask you if you liked coffee”, She smiles and runs a nervous hand through her hair. “Do you…do your parents know where you are?”

Amity can feel the beeping sounds of a machine next to her vibrating through her body. She can see a dull blue curtain on a rail in front of her. She can hear voices, some English and some speaking that strange code, and for once in her life she is at a complete loss for words.

She turns her head to fully face the girl. She’s pretty, Amity notices. There’s something so genuine and open about her; it’s in the way her legs are uncrossed and she’s leaned forward to catch whatever Amity throws at her. It’s in the way her eyes shine with curiosity and her hair curls slightly at the ends.

She turns back onto her front. She doesn’t have any answers.

“My name is Luz”, the girl…Luz…tries again. “I promise I’m just trying to help but if you don’t want to tell me anything that’s okay too”.

And despite herself, despite her knowing better, she feels tears begin to well up in her eyes. Her left leg is so heavy and the lights are so bright and there is nothing she knows anywhere. She turns to face Luz again.

“I don’t know where I am. Where am I?”

Luz blinks. Frowns with concern. “Right now you’re in a hospital. If you mean like what city and state you’re in then currently you’re in Miami, Florida.”

“What is Miami? And Florida? Can I get back to the Boiling Isles from here?”

Luz blinks once. Twice. And then a small smile graces her lips. “You’re messing with me, right?”

The beeping sounds get louder as soon as Amity bolts upright but she doesn’t care, Her leg is in a cast and she’s fine. She needs to leave, Find her way back. _Now._ But the pain returns with new vengeance as soon as she puts pressure on it and she finally breaks down, beginning to cry uncontrollably sat on the side of a weirdly hard bed in a ‘hospital’.

“Hey nonono don’t cry! I’m sorry!” Suddenly there are arms wrapped around her and she’s being pulled into Luz’s warm body, embraced like a newborn baby. She lets herself cry, feeling the sobs wrack her body in gentle waves, feeling the confusion and despair and pain and tiredness wash in and out of her every breath. She’s shaking and tired and done with trying to pretend she’s okay.

But as Luz cradles her in her arms, whispering ‘shhh it’s okay’ into her green hair, Amity feels protected somehow from what she knows is about to come.

-

Their house, Luz and Camila’s house, is much smaller than Amity’s parents’ mansion. Much _much_ smaller.

She doesn’t mention this thought to either of the women currently helping her for absolutely no reason. She still can’t quite piece either of them together. What they want, who they are, why they’re being so nice. It seems completely irrational but here she is wrapped in a purple blanket sat on the floor of Luz’s bedroom. There are posters on every side of the four walls. Her fifth cup of hot chocolate she's been given today sits firmly in her hands and the slight burning of her skin against the mug comforts her somehow.

“Is that an Azura poster?”

Luz, who had been going through her wardrobe to find Amity some ‘pajamas’ is now grinning in her direction. _Who let you be this goofy?_

“Sure is! Why, you a fan?”

She glances back down at her cocoa. Feeling her face heat up. “It’s…fine”

“So fine you’re blushing with nonchalance?” And when Amity dares snatch another glance, she sees the other girl smirking, pleased with herself. _Goof._

“Okay, _maybe_ I like the books”

They share a moment, then, where their eyes meet in a weirdly intense and excited way. Golden on brown. Fire on fire.

And then Camila is at the door. “Amity, did you send your parents our address?”

Amity frowns, starting to believe this has all just been a weirdly elaborate nightmare. “…No, how could I? I don’t even know it myself”

Camila mirrors her frown, placing the envelope in front of her and sitting across from her on the softly carpeted floor. Luz plops herself down in between them so they’re sitting in what Amity feels is the perfect conjuring circle. She’s starting to think there is no magic in Miami, because there has been absolutely no hint of spells or magical use since she’s been here. _Maybe best not to mention the conjuring idea._

“Mija”, Camila reaches over and squeezes her hand gently, “we can only help you if you tell us what’s going on”.

She swallows. Nods. Feels her hands shake as she opens the letter with great care and caution, fingers sliding along the nape of the perfectly cream paper.

_Dear Miss. Blight,_

_Due to unforeseen circumstances we have placed you in the human world until further notice. We are concerned for your safety and will ensure you are returned to us when the danger has properly passed._

_We will be in contact soon to update you on any progress we might have made to ensure your safe journey home. Until then, be prepared at all times._

_Signed,_

_Lilith Clawthorne under order of ‘The Emperor’s Coven’_


	2. Part One: Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulnerability. Confusion. Fear. 
> 
> Amity Blight is no low-grade witch, but this is straight out of an Azura novel. And not in a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!
> 
> So usually I don't update this fast but this chapter came pouring out of me all at once and I wanted to share it, so here we are :)
> 
> This is part one and so it's a lil bit angsty (Amity is just getting used to her surroundings and dealing with her feelings) but I promise the follow up chapters will have some more upbeat and fun moments, so keep your eyes peeled for those! Apart from that, there's not much else to say apart from that I hope you enjoy reading this and, as usual, if you spot any Spanish mistakes in the text please feel free to correct me in the comments (I haven't ever studied Spanish but wanted to include some phrases)! 
> 
> Happy reading and see you in the end notes :)

They taught you about the human world briefly in any good witching school. It was always covered and if you were really interested you joined an after school club or something. No one on the Boiling isles was really that bothered about humans in general and no one knew more about them or their way of life than the very basics. And why should they? Humans were dull. Humans were boring. Humans were defeatist and primitive and honestly kind of stupid. That was what Amity’s parents had drummed into her, Edric and Emira all their lives as they grew up. “Witches”, they had promised, “are the top of the chain. And you’re the top of the top. Don’t ever forget that”.

“TAKE THAT SUCKER!!”

Having been basically adopted by two (very kind) humans had therefore not been part of Amity Blight’s grand life plans. In fact, her life calendar hadn’t even included trips to other realms. She’d kept it simple, achievable and incredibly detailed. Finish school, join the Emperor’s Coven, marry a handsome rich witch man her parents (hopefully) approved of and spend her life learning magic. That was the one thing Amity loved more than anything else in the world: magic. The thrill of it. The beauty of it. The power of it.

However, she now has to face her new reality. And its not been as bad as she would have predicted it to be had she been allowed to plan. For one, she’s had quite an educational week in terms of expanding her knowledge on human living. Camila and Luz live in a two-bedroom house with two floors. The main colour scheme of the place is creamy white walls, a lot of oak brown furniture and various statement accessories. The mustard yellow lampshade is Amity’s personal favourite, but the rusty orange tablecloth adorning their kitchen table is a close second.

The house is completely open plan, something that again she is not used to. Her parents’ mansion is anything but open plan and sometimes she had dreamt as a small child that the walls would close in on her and crush her in her sleep. Sometimes she had _wished_ they would. Secretly.

Here it felt spacey and breathable.

“RIGHT! WAIT, LEFT! I’M GONNA GET YOU!!”

Amity sucks on her lower lip, deep in thought and concentration. If her family could see her right now, see this _human house_ right now, they’d absolutely flip. But all that stuff she was taught in school? Totally false and invaluable in the actual human realm. Exhibit A: Luz had a strange box which played films on it and a smaller strange box that produced really good sounds. They had a cold cabinet for keeping things at the right temperature. These instruments were genius ways to get around the no magic thing, and yet Amity had never dreamed of humans having such inventive ability or prowess.

“I’LL TAKE YOU DOWN IN ONE BLOW!!”

Sure, there were no explosions outside the windows every morning, or any orange skies or random magical mishaps left right and center, but this place was its own kind of magic. Peaceful. Cozy.

_Grom am I going crazy? There’s nothing loveable about this you place idiot. You’re trapped! You’re basically a hostage! You’re a Blight!_

“I win! I win! I win!” Luz throws herself off of the sofa and onto the floor in victory, grinning smugly at Amity from down on her knees. Luz was the literal antithesis of basic human science. She never stopped moving and she always had something to say. Amity had noticed that Luz tended to hum in her sleep (she had been placed on Luz’s bedroom floor in a sleep cocoon for the last week and sleep had been far less interesting to her than staring at the ceiling and listening to the faint echoes of human life drifting in through the window).

So why did Amity find it so difficult to talk to her?

They have the house to themselves for most of the day most days of the week. Her mum really is a nurse, Luz was being honest, and she was always on shift it seemed. She remembered when she’d asked Luz if she had ever been lonely before.

“Lonely as in…wanting a brother or sister?’

She had nodded, glancing down at her toes. “Sorry if that’s rude to ask. I just…I have an older twin brother and sister so….”

“I guess I was a little lonely. I don’t feel that way with you here.”

She hadn’t bothered to point out that they didn’t know how long she’d be here. Luz’s words had awakened a soft thrumming inside of her, one that had disturbed her into complete silence. It was weird to be genuinely….liked.

“Hey….Earth to Amity?”

She glances up and catches Luz’s eyes, managing a smile. “Sorry…what?”

“Do you want a rematch?”

She shakes her head gently, pointing instead to the box set Luz has of all five Azura films. Weirdly, the human world is also making her sort of wordless. There’s so much she _wants_ to say that nothing ends up coming out. So unlike her normal self.

Luckily, Luz seems to sort of understand her silent gestures and movements.

“Okay okay. No more Wii boxing, I feel ya.”

The first Azura film begins to play within minutes of Luz fiddling with the mysterious black box thingy that projects films. They sit shoulder to shoulder on the small grey sofa in comfortable silence. Amity tries not to notice how their bodies’ shared warmth makes her feel soft. _Because you’re being overly trusting. Because this whole situation is making you soft. Idiot, idiot, idiot._

-

She’s woken from a light slumber when Luz gently pokes her cheek.

Opening her eyes slowly, golden irises meet deep earthy brown. Her insides quiver, but she doesn’t know why.

Luz wordlessly holds out another letter. Amity accepts the envelope into her jittery hands and snuggles into Luz’s weight like some sort of pathetic stray shoulder demon. But no one is around to see it. So.

_Date: Monday 1st July 2019_

_Dear Miss Blight,_

_You are being ordered by the Emperor’s Coven to stay in the human realm until further notice. Any attempt to go against this order will be received as a threat to the Coven. Please avoid disobedience by remaining in the human realm until we collect you._

_Signed,_

_Lilith Clawthorne, ordered by the Emperor’s Coven_

“Can I read?”

Luz peeps over her shoulder briefly before Amity has the chance to snatch the page away. She rolls onto the floor and stuffs it into her pocket.

“I told you I can’t show you the letters”, she tries to keep her voice level and calm, but annoyance seeps through.

Luz notices. “And _I_ told _you_ that if you don’t tell me what’s happening I can’t help you!”

Amity whips her head around, suddenly feeling every sour feeling of fear and insecurity she’s experienced in the last week surge up inside her. Her face is hot. “I don’t want your help, human”.

Luz blinks. “Human?”

“Yes! HUMAN!”, she can’t help it, she starts to laugh at herself, feeling insane, the frustration and anger and tears forming a flood, “You can’t help me! I’ve been dumped in some weird place with some _weird people_ and I have no way of getting back home and they’re threatening me from even trying!! And I feel guilty for feeling angry because you’re being so nice to me! What’s in it for _you_ Luz?! What’s in it for you and your mum?!” She falls forward, bending in on herself. “Why is this happening to me?”, she whispers.

And then she freezes.

She’s said too much.

_Idiot._

And before she knows what her body is doing she’s straightened out and standing up, running, letter in hand and without anything else weighing her down. Her black t-shirt dress flails in gusts of wind. Out the door, onto the street and around the corner of the col de sac onto another street and another street and _another_ street and-

They all look the same. Everything in this world is neat and orderly. There is no chaos. Just miles of bricks and concrete and pavement and drowsy white skies that won’t even shed any damn rain.

She sinks down onto a knee level brick wall behind her, crying uncontrollably in public for only the second time in her life. She’s stupidly angry with herself for being so vulnerable.

Many of them walk by: the humans. They come in all shapes and sizes, she observes through bleary vision, just like witches do. Different skin colours, different hair colours, different eyes, ears, mouths, bodies and clothes to clad themselves in. Just like witches but without the pointed ears.

Footsteps.

“AMITY?!”

“What do you _want?_ ” She’s risen to her feet subconsciously, but now she sinks back down, defeated. There’s no point fighting. Luz doesn’t even look angry, she just looks….confused? Worried? And she sits down right next to her, so their bodies are close again (they’re always close. She has shared Luz’s bedroom for the past six nights, sat on the sofa up against her, eaten dinner right beside her. She doesn’t know why she’s been so clingy).

Their hands intertwine. She’s all dark skin and fluffy brown hair. She’s warm. She’s trouble.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Please. I’m not lying when I say I want to help”

“Can I ask you why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to help?”

They face each other. A stand-off. Amity radiates intensity (Edric and Emira have told her this many times) so eventually Luz looks away first and Amity smiles to herself at the small victory in the otherwise hopeless situation. _Beggars can’t be choosers, as the humans say._

“Just before you showed up, I was about to go to camp. Summer camp”. She sees Amity’s obvious confusion, and elaborates. “It’s where they send kids away for three months in the summer when they’re not at school so their parents can keep working. Or when they’re causing trouble and need to ‘check into reality’. Or whatever. My mum wanted me to grow up a little, I guess. But then you just… _appeared._ One minute there was just an empty spot on the pavement and then you were just… _there_ ”.

“A portal”

“Huh?”

“I was wondering how they sent me here all that way. It has to have been a portal”.

Luz raises a singular eyebrow. “Right. Portal. Yeah.” And then her eyes widen in surprise because suddenly Amity is all up in her face, hands placed firmly on her shoulders.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

“Really?!”

She nods, smiling and rolling her eyes in spite of herself (Emira would be gagging). “Yes. Really. But you have to promise me that you won’t think I’m crazy and that you won’t tell anyone else. This is between us, okay?” She tries to keep the desperation out of her voice. _Play it cool Amity, play it cool._

“What about my mum?” Luz pauses, unsure. “I’d feel guilty lying to her”.

Amity nods, scrunching her nose slightly. “I know, but it’ll make it much safer for her if she’s in the dark. I need to tell someone what’s going on, but the less people who know the better.”

“Okay”

“Okay?”

“…okay”

“I’m not from here”

A snort. They share a giggle. ‘Obviously. So where are you from?”

And that’s how Amity ends her weeklong silence. She begins to talk, and finds she can’t stop. Everything comes pouring out: details about the Boiling Isles, about magic, her school, her friends who aren’t really her friends, her weird family. They sit on the brick wall until the sunsets and the sky turns a deep orange. Amity feels the happiest she’s felt since arriving in this strange place.

So she feels her walls thawing. Just a little.

Luz hangs on to her every word.

-

_Wednesday 7 thJuly 2019_

_Dear Miss Blight,_

_Your parents would like us to inform you that they are keeping your grades in school fixed. There is therefore no need for you to worry about school._

_Signed,_

_Lilith Clawthorne, by order of the Emperor’s Coven_

_-_

“So I’ve been thinking”

Amity glances up as Luz makes them coffee. She has tried it and found she enjoys the slight bitterness. It’s early morning the day after she ran her mouth and she hasn’t been sent to jail yet for being batshit crazy so she guesses that’s good. The kitchen is theirs (Camila is working). A mug is placed in front of her and she looks up to see Luz staring at her with unexpected intensity. “We should come up with a plan, right?”

“Plan?”

She nods. “Yeah. You need to get back home somehow. I can’t imagine how you must feel right now, being stuck here.”

An itch starts scratching itself in Amity’s stomach. Going back should excite her, and it _does,_ but the whole situation still makes her nervous. It’s too unpredictable. Something is clearly not right. Something is clearly amiss. She can’t reason with it or evaluate it or manipulate it in her favour. She simply has to…accept it and hope that whatever is going on back on the Boiling Isles is fixable.

“How would we do that?”

They sit opposite each other, sipping in unison. Warmth spreads through her mouth. Bittersweet. The longer she stares into the depths of the mug, the steamier her vision gets.

“We find out how you got here, for definite, and then send you back the same way.” Luz scratches the back of her head, pulling her top lip in thought. “I thought about it last night and it kinda makes sense, right?”

Amity feels her heart sink. “I can’t do that much general magic, especially not anything involving portals. It’s too powerful and I don’t know how.”

“Ah”

“Yeah”

“Do they…”, she pauses, “do they not teach powerful magic in your magic school?”

Amity shakes her head, smiling wistfully. “Not really. You have to choose a track of magic you want to learn and that’s what you’re educated in. You can become powerful in your track, I guess, but witches aren’t meant to use magic wildly. I chose the abomination track for the job prospects but I guess that’s not helpful here”.

“Seems odd”

“Huh?”

Luz blushes, waving her hands in front of her face apologetically. “Sorry I didn’t mean to be rude. I just meant…well…isn’t it weird to only teach everyone one kind of magic when magic is more than one kind of magic as a whole?”

Amity feels herself frown “I guess I never thought about it that way before but….that’s a fair point”.

“But you know basic spells?”

“Yeah. Here.”

She lifts both her hands so her palms cup thin air in between them. The ball of light appears just as it always does, warm and softly glowing yellow. Luz’s brown eyes widen with admiration, and Amity finds herself inexplicably drawn to her. The illumination on her face. The freckles on her nose. She really is very pretty.

After a moment, she lets the light fade, and the moment fades with it. They sit in silence, staring at each other, until a machine begins to beep. Last night’s leftovers. Luz stands up to load both of their plates with the food and Amity chews her lip. That itch in her stomach is back again. _Weird._

“So magic really is real.”

“Yeah.”

Another beat of silence. Her heart is racing now, and she feels her face begin to flush. _Inhale, exhale._

“Luz?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure you can”

“Why do you and your mum speak in code?”

Suddenly, Luz splutters with laughter and doubles over, placing a hand on the kitchen countertop for support. “ _Code?!_ What is this, a spy movie?”

She feels indignance flush her system and heat an even brighter shade of cherry red. “I mean I’ve never heard it before! I just…I dunno some of the words you say mean. That’s all”. She huffs and crosses her arms, staring into her mug and wishing it would swallow her whole. _You’re an idiot._

Suddenly she feels a hand on her shoulder and she flinches, but Luz replaces it gently. “I wasn’t making fun of you, sorry, it’s just…well…. tú no hablas Español?”

Amity stares blankly at her. Luz smiles gently. “You don’t speak Spanish?”

“What’s…’Spanish’?”

“It’s a language! Humans have lots of different languages they use to communicate all over Earth. Spanish is one of the most popular ones. Didn’t they teach you anything about humans on the Boiling Isles?”

Amity stares up at the ceiling. “I’m starting to think the Boiling Isles didn’t teach us anything useful”.

“I’m sure that’s not true. And there must be other spells for travel, right? Or some way to uncover what happened in the past? OH! Or spells for seeing into the future!”

She shakes her head, chewing on her lip. “It doesn’t work the way. It does in those films you showed me. The reality is you have to learn spells. I know some, of course, but none of them are useful for this kind of…situation.”

“Teach me!”

“What?”

Luz is sat opposite her again, leaning in to the middle of the table, eyes shining. “Teach me magic! I _really_ loved that light thing you just did. And who knows, maybe something in the process of you teaching me will make you think about how spells are performed and you’ll figure out a way to get home!”

Amity raises her eyebrows, blinking in surprise. “That’s…not a totally bad idea.”

Luz woops, fist pumping the air and splitting her face with a wide grin.

“But I don’t know if humans can do magic.”

“We won’t know until we try!”

“Very true. But we can’t start yet.”

Luz pouts. “Why?”

“Didn’t your mum say we had to do the chores?”

“True. Very true.”

“I wouldn’t want to disrespect your mother. She’s been kind to me”. She twiddles with her thumbs, feeling uncharacteristically shy again.

Luz smiles. “She is. She is kind”.

-

“Why is it all stacked on different levels?”

“Just so they can display it properly, I guess. It’s nice to be able to see all your options.”

“But isn’t all of this…a bit much?”

“Depends. Most of these places restock throughout the day and overnight so I’d actually guess that it’s barely enough”

“Is all of it edible?”

Luz snorts when she laughs. Her eyes glint and her cheeks turn pink. Not that Amity is watching Luz that closely (because that would be both inappropriate and make her a massive loser). “No. Some of this stuff is for other things like hygiene and cleaning. You know, basic necessities”.

The ‘grocery shop’ is cold is some places and warm in others. There are weirdly bright lights on the ceiling (why are there so many lights everywhere in ‘Miami’?). Most importantly, there is colour absolutely everywhere. It’s a little overwhelming. 

She’s holding Luz’s hand and being guided through the place like a small child. Luz’s hand makes her feel like at least some part of this situation is under her control. Luz knows where she’s going and where they’re going to end up. Luz now knows everything about Amity and what she needs to do. Luz knows lots of other things too, like how many light years are between stars and lots of different words in Spanish that sound beautiful when rolling off her tongue. She has a pretty voice.

_Emira and Edric would be having a field day if they could see you right now. Get a grip and focus!_

She makes a mental note to remember everything she can about the human realm so she can tell her siblings all about the crazy things she is seeing right here, right now.

If she ever gets to see them again.

-

They’re lying in Luz’s bed. Amity was lonely on the floor. Luz had asked her why she looked sad. Now here she was, lying in Luz’s bed. Everything between them is so naturally simple. Amity wonders if this is how social interaction is _meant_ to feel. Is this what she’s been missing her whole life? Maybe it’s the lack of pressure. No one here in this house, in this street, knows who her parents are or who she is meant to be.

The window is open and a cool breeze wafts through, tangling the other girl’s hair in loose brown waves and making her seem even more ethereal than she already feels to Amity. There’s no need to break the silence, the kind of need she feels when it’s her and her parents sitting around their huge dining table picking at food none of them want to eat.

“Do you miss your family?”

Her eyes widen. She rolls onto her side and suddenly their faces are extra close. Closer than usual. She can feel Luz’s breath fanning onto her face ever so gently. “Can you read my mind?”

A gentle giggle. Soft smiles. “Nah”, she replies softly. “So…you do?”

Amity feels her head shake. She doesn’t mean to be so honest. She doesn’t mean to _keep_ being so honest. But there’s something about Luz that makes her want to be,

“My parents don’t really...do affection. It’s not really like that on the Boiling Isles. I miss my brother and sister, but I don’t exactly miss my parents”. Luz’s face drops, eyes becoming heavy and sad. “So no one on the Boiling Isles is that affectionate? That sounds…kind of awful”

Amity grins. “Sort of. I think you humans value affection more highly than witches. It’s just normal that way for us. Although…”

“What?”

“I used to have a friend. Willow. Back when we were little, I mean. Her dads loved her. I was always kind of jealous”. Her face flushes with embarrassment. “But it’s not anything I care about. I don’t need anyone’s love. Or pity”.

Luz shuffles even closer, so their noses touch. Every nerve in her body wires itself that spot immediately. It’s ridiculous.

“I’ve barely known you a week. I already care about you. So does my mum.”

_Too intense. Too honest._ Amity rolls back onto her back, face flushing. “Why?”

Luz rolls back too, copying her motions. Following her pace. “My mum loves everyone. She’s got a big heart. And I guess I’ve just never met anyone like you. There’s something. I dunno”.

Their hands find each other in the moonlit dark. The posters on all four walls, filled with faces and colours and words, seem to sway over her closing eyes in fluid motions. Luz’s room is small. Luz’s room is crammed and messy. Luz’s room is the place she feels the absolute safest at this moment in time.

She feels her hand being squeezed. A reassurance. A comfort.

-

Camila Noceda must have a _huge_ heart, because a few mornings later (she thinks it’s a Saturday if she remembers correctly) Camila is plopping a pile of vintage floral sundresses onto Luz’s bedroom floor.

“Amity? Ah, there you are mija! I found some spare clothes for you to wear! These will keep you nice and cool in this heat”.

Amity looks up from her thumbs, which she had previously been staring at aimlessly. Luz had left to go shopping for more groceries early in the morning and Amity had slept right through her departure. Camila was home, obviously not working today, which meant she was being extra motherly over Amity. Amity feels slightly uncomfortable but decides not to mention that she hates floral prints. She would have had no problem mentioning this to anyone on the Boiling Isles, but no one on the Boiling Isles told her she was going to be okay and fed her spicy bean stew.

“Thank you”. She tries to smile. She feels it stick on her face in all the wrong places.

Camila returns the smile gently, kneeling down onto the floor in front of her. The dresses remain piled between them like some sort of barrier. A flowery barrier.

“I wanted to ask you if, when you’re ready, we can help you with whatever is going on”.

_Lie. Think of something. Anything!_ “What did…”, she clears her throat, attempting more confidence, “what did Luz tell you?”.

“She told me you ran away from home and needed some time to heal.” She shuffles closer and rests a warm hand on Amity’s shoulder. _She and Luz are crazy similar._ “Look, cariño, I don’t want to push you to tell me anything. I just want you to know that you’re welcome to stay here for a while until you know what you want to do next”.

Amity feels her throat closing up, her breathing getting lighter. Has it always been so warm in here? “What if I don’t know what to do?” She turns and looks into those deep brown eyes. “What if I don’t know anything anymore?”.

“I promise you will, mija. You’re smart. You’re strong. And I am here for you. Luz is, too.”

When Camila ruffles Amity’s hair, she lets herself pretend, for a brief moment, that Camila is her real mother and that this is her real home where she was always meant to be. And then she feels immensely guilty.

But she’s right. Camila’s right. As Amity is left alone once more to her thoughts (and thumb-staring) she begins to form a plan. A vague plan, but a plan nonetheless.

_I am a Blight. I am Amity Blight. I am never unprepared._

_I am smart. I am strong._

_-_

_Sunday 7 th July 2019_

_Dear Miss. Blight,_

_We are writing to inform you that it is still not safe for you to return to the Boiling Isles. As you seem to have firmly located to this address, we will assume you are safe and do not require further assistance until your return home._

_Ensure your safety and be ready for any changes at all times._

_Signed Lilith Clawthorne, by order of the Emperor’s Coven._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amity's here, Amity's queer and Amity is filled with existential fear. 
> 
> In all seriousness this fic is going to get more cheery and cute as it goes on I swear! This is part one of five as of my planning right now, so if all goes well there will be four more main updates and an epilogue to look forward to. The fluff is coming, I promiseeee.
> 
> ALSO the title of this story is based on a song by The National if you were wondering! It's a pretty angsty song but it's what inspired me to write it so give it a listen if you feel like it or wanna vibe with the story.
> 
> Next update will hopefully be coming along soon, I don't want them to be too far apart because I am impatient af and hate waiting for things so don't want to be a hypocrite and do the same to you all. (But also consistency is not my strong point, you have been warned lmao). 
> 
> Leave a comment if you want, I love reading them, and I'll see you all next time. Stay safe and well xx


	3. Part Two: Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Longing. Overwhelm. Amazement. 
> 
> Amity Blight is no low-grade witch, but this is straight out of an Azura novel. And not in a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two is here my friends, WOW this took me days to write and edit bc it was wAY too long and ramble-y. It's still almost 5k words but um...hope you still enjoy? :') 
> 
> Basically this chapter is my baby and I love it but also it's probs the least exciting one out of the bunch bc it's literally just Amity gay panicking and feeling useless for most of it lmao but then I can relate so...!! Honestly i think it's pretty cute and we've got some oblivious Luz in here, Amity wearing adorable dresses and some DANCING?! Basically lumity is cute af and I have no self-control and here we are!
> 
> But seriously, I hope you enjoy reading this because I LOVED writing it. See ya in the end notes :) x

PART TWO: DISCOVERY

It starts small: little things. Like this morning, right here, with the sun shining dimly in through the window and stroking gentle light-lines across her face. They edge across her supple cheeks and caress the curly ends of her dark hair, which has fluffed in her sleep. And all Amity can do is stare at her. Drinking her in. Look closely at something she can’t have.

It’s self-indulgent, but no one can see and so no one has to know. She doesn’t mean to watch Luz sleep, knows it’s cliché and borderline creepy, but she just…she just can’t _help_ it. Luz is so pretty. Her whole face rests in on itself and her eyelashes brush against her cheeks in the most angelic way Amity has ever seen. And although they’re already sleeping right next to each other, bodies separated by mere inches, she finds herself wanting closer. Wanting to wrap her arms around Luz and hold her tight, keep her safe. Return the favour. Luz has made her feel so safe, even though she knows better. Logically. _I want to hold you tight so you won’t ever choose to let me go._

Luz mumbles something in her sleep and Amity sighs, turning onto her back.

-

_Monday 20 th July 2019_

_Dear Miss. Blight,_

_Due to unforeseen circumstances the following individuals are now considered outlaws on the Boiling Isles:_

  * _Miss Edalyn Clawthorne_
  * _King_



_We appreciate your understanding in that any attempts to contact these individuals will result in you gaining matching criminal status. We trust you will thus avoid any association with these beings and remain in the human realm until further notice._

_Signed, Lilith Clawthorne, by order of the Emperor’s Coven_

_-_

_Monday 20th July 2019_

_Dear Miss. Blight,_

_We regret to inform you that your subscription to ‘Witching WeekNightly’ has been cancelled due to missed payment. This month’s issue is fiendishly special, including an all-new prophecy column writer! We have included a sneak peek of her forecasted prophecy in order to perhaps respark your interest. If you wish to re-subscribe, please ensure you proceed with payments._

**_Prophetic fortnightly caster Dana WitBrow writes: ‘Mortal souls will stake a claim. Magic is learned through unfused vein’._ **

_All this and more in our latest edition. Any further enquiries can be mailed to WWN Hub, Boiling Isles._

_Signed, Witching WeekNightly Customer Services Team_

-

“What’s that neon coloured stick for?”

Luz glances up from her desk where she had previously been using said stick, scratching into a piece of paper with clean, crisp scrapes. “This?” She holds it up. It is bright yellow. A rectangular tube.

Amity nods. “What does it do?”

Luz grins, dropping the tube onto her desk and clasping her hands together excitedly. "¡Ay, qué lindo! Amity, your cluelessness is _adorable!_ ”

She feels her nose scrunch in indignance, eyes boring into the purple carpeted floor. “I’m not clueless. I’m curious. There’s a difference”. _Nailed it._

Luz closes her eyes and nods, humming an agreement. “I suppose that’s true. This, my friend”, she sings, picking up the tube and waving it through the air, “is a highlighter. A powerful tool for only the most studious humans”.

“High…lighter?”

“Yup! It makes things in big blocks of texts easier to see! Look here”. She lifts up a copy of a chores list left to them by Camila (it has two lovingly hand-drawn impressions of Amity and Luz’s faces imprinted at the bottom) and draws a bright yellow line brightening the words ‘HOOVER KITCHEN’ onto it.

She stands and takes the paper, glancing through the list. “I like it. Can I borrow it?”

Luz nods, handing her the instrument. She pads over to the other side of the room where her letters are stuffed into Luz’s sock drawer, and proceeds to highlight her latest letter’s most interesting line, knelt over the paper, face filled with concentration. She hears Luz shuffling over to her and instinctively makes room for her to sit. She ignores the voice in her head chanting _soft soft soft soft you’ve gone soft soft soft sof-_

“Mortal souls will stake a claim. Magic is learned through…unfused vein? Is that, like, a real prophecy?”

Their eyes meet. Amity lets herself stare for a moment too long, feeling the familiar itch scratch itself in the pit of her belly. “It’s just the weekly prophecy forecast. But I think it might be a clue”.

Luz frowns, mouth pouting, eyebrows turned down. “Clue?”

Amity nods. “Yeah. See here?”, she points towards the letter, “where it says my subscription was cancelled?”. She stands and begins to pace the room, letter still in hand. “Well I was never subscribed in the first place! Everyone knows Witching WeekNightly is for kids and, besides, I have better things to spend my money on”.

She glances to where Luz is still sat on the floor. Her expression turns from a frown to a more pensive one. “So you’re saying the letter doesn’t make sense?”

“Exactly. Someone sent me this either accidentally or, more likely”, she kneels back down so she and Luz are face to face, “on purpose”.

“As a clue.”

“Yes. As a clue”.

Luz reaches over and takes the letter, scanning the highlighted prophecy once more. “Well, I’m no witch yet but ‘mortal souls will stake a claim’ sounds kinda dark to me. And…what even _is_ an unfused vein? Is that another magic thing?”

“I…don’t know”

Amity feels her shoulders slack a little, the confusion weighing on her bones. No one in her family would have sent her a coded message like this, they weren’t subtle enough for that kind of thing. None of her friends would even _think_ of something this….strange….and there was no one else she knew of who would have motivation to do so. This whole thing was becoming stranger by the second. She feels her body becoming more and more weightless, her head beginning to spin. _Is everything getting darker? Has it always been this hard to breathe?_

And then a hand is in on her shoulder, squeezing. Reassuring. Luz is looking her in the eyes, her intensity radiating across once again. “Don’t make that face Amity, it’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out”.

Amity knows it’s an empty promise. Luz doesn’t know the first thing about her world. Luz hums in her sleep and tells her that everything is going to be okay every morning just because she can. And yet…

She takes a deep breath.

“Yeah. Yeah if you say so”.

Luz’s smile is small. It’s her eyes, the way they go soft, that tell Amity what she really needs to know. “I do. Now”, she stands up, pulling Amity and the letter up with her, “let’s carry on with the mind-map. This clue deserves it’s own line, right?”

“Right!”

_I am strong. I am smart. We’re making progress._

-

“Mis hijas, how was today?”

Camila ladles food onto Amity’s plate that she has never seen before. It’s become part of her routine in the human realm: she and Luz will add theories to their mind-map (craftily hidden from Camila’s eyes in Luz’s sock drawer), Amity will show Luz magic spells and attempt (and repeatedly fail) to teach them to her, they’ll then proceed to do whatever chores Camila has set for them and end up watching an Azura film. Or even better, they’ll play a ‘video game’ and Amity will have every excuse to lose control, let her emotions control her, even if it’s just for a little while.

After they’ve spent the day together Camila comes home and cooks. They sit around the wooden dining table and eat and talk. Camila always has funny stories from her shifts that she and Luz lap up with enthusiasm she hasn’t felt for many things since she was a very small child, and she always ends up being fed seconds like some sort of stray dog. Amity doesn’t take kindly to pity. She _hates_ pity. But Camila’s affection, Luz’s affection, it doesn’t feel like pity, it feels like….companionship. Empathy.

Love that she hasn’t really felt before.

“What is this?” she asks, hoping she doesn’t sound ungrateful.

Camila simply grins (Amity has noticed that when Camila grins her entire face lifts up , like all her features shine when her heart glows). “It’s empanada night, mija. Enjoy!”

And Amity finds that she really does enjoy them. She’s learned by now that dinner in the Noceda household is a social occasion. She also is increasingly conscious, every time they all eat together, that she really _does_ feel guilty lying to Camila.

And then she scolds herself because it’s not really her fault. It’s for Camila’s safety. It’s for her protection.

She glances up, half-chewed empanada stuffed unattractively into her mouth. She swallows down a little too hard. “Sorry, pardon?”

Camila and Luz both eye her with mild concern before returning to their own food, Luz smiling to herself a little. Camila refills Amity’s water glass and continues. “Our family friend Sofia is having a party in our local church tonight to celebrate her 50thbirthday. I was wondering if you both would want to come along for a little bit, get out of the house?”

Amity feels the fear flood her system before she can compose herself; the gesture is so heartfelt and genuine that her cheeks flame red. Camila immediately ups her concern. “Carino we don’t have to go if you’re not up for it”.

“I’ll come”. It leaves her mouth before she processes what she is promising. The fear pokes at her but she pushes it down. Luz blinks up from her food, mouth hanging open with surprise. _Goof._

“Maravilloso! I’ll clear up while you two go get dressed then”.

They traipse up the stairs. Amity shuts the bedroom door behind her.

“We don’t have to go”. Luz is stood by her wardrobe; hand paused above the sock drawer. “I know you probably want to do literally anything else.”

“Of course we have to go”, Amity huffs, removing her purple leggings and choosing a suitable dress. “You saw your mother’s face, it made her so happy when I said yes”.

“Are you going soft on us, Blight?”

“In your dreams”.

Luz smiles, staring a moment longer than necessary before turning to her clothes drawers to search for suitable options. Amity already has pulled on what she’s going to wear: one of Camila’s generously donated vintage floral dresses. It’s not a look she would go for back home, but she doesn’t want to turn her nose up on kindness and the dress itself is actually kind of pretty. The base is a deep midnight black coated with pale flowers which twist themselves across the fabric in mismatched waves. The collar, creamy white, sits on her neck perfectly. Topping it all off she pulls on a pair of thin grey stockings. She’ll wear her black-heeled boots. She feels like some sort of human princess with a dark side. She feels…pretty. _Weak. Vulnerable._

She knows she’s been staring at herself in the mirror for too long when Luz slings an arm over her shoulders, face all up in hers. She is wearing baggy blue jeans and a button up polo shirt, which has been tucked in at the waist. “Don’t worry”, she chides, “You look nice”.

Amity watches herself in the mirror, praying her face doesn’t turn bright red. Mercifully, it only vaguely tinges pink. “Thank you, Luz. And you look…nice. Strange but…nice”. _So smooth Amity. Good job. 10/10._

“I dress to impress”.

The face staring back at her from within the mirror is getting hotter and hotter by the second, cheeks flaming and betraying how flustered she really feels, so Amity whips around quickly before she can say anything stupid.

“WELL we’d better go downstairs because Camila is probably waiting and we’re totally ready to go I guess!” she giggles but it sounds extremely awkward. Her ears are burning. _Grom, why?_

-

Amity stares down at her feet, refusing to show the anxiousness that is almost definitely clouding her face. It’s stupid to feel so uncertain in the human realm after almost a month of being stuck here, but unfamiliarity is still everywhere and it isn’t getting much easier to step outside without her heart thundering. They’re in a wide room, house by a large ceiling and windows of what Luz says are ‘stained glass’. Chairs have been moved to line the sides of the room so there is space in the middle for guests to dance and chat in small social circles. She and Luz are a little out of place; the guests are either adults who all seem to know each other or younger kids who have grouped together at various tables to colour pieces of paper. The room is dimly lit, the dark night sky filtered into colour by the stained glass windows and orange lamps. The scene is beautiful, if not overwhelming, and the music is the background drowns out her anxiety just a little.

Luz returns from the snack table, grinning. Amity tries to smile, but it comes out wrong and fills her face in all the wrong places.

“Are you okay?”. Luz reaches for Amity’s hands but Amity avoids the gesture by kneeling down onto the floor to retie her bootlace. It was already tied, but she methodically undoes and restrings the knot to give herself composure time. Because she’s being silly. Because really, she _is_ fine. It’s ridiculous how nervous she is.

“We can go home if you don’t want to be here, Ams,”

“Your home isn’t my home so that makes no sense”. Immediate guilt slinks through her. _Be kind._ “I’m fine.” She stands up and shoots Luz a smile, a genuine smile (albeit a small one), and takes her hand after all.

“Well”, Luz glances around the room at the various gatherings of grown ups. “Why don’t we dance? Everyone else seems to be doing it”.

And Amity lets herself breathe, just a little. No one would know. No one back home would ever know that she had let herself go just a little bit. Had fun, been vulnerable, let the ‘little miss perfect’ crown fall ever so slightly.

_Let go. Have some fun!_

“Okay”

Luz grins, eyes lowering to where their hands join and pulls. The adults are using the center of the room as a dance floor: women, including Camila, dancing for social enjoyment. Dancing because they can. The music in the background is slow in tempo and yet melodically upbeat.

But there’s something different about the way the adults dance compared to the way she and Luz begin to dance. The way Luz holds her, left hands gently clasped together and right hand slid around her waist daintily, like she’s afraid Amity will drift away at any moment. It feels very…intimate. Private. She finds everything in the background fading away: the music, the chatter, the patter of the falling rain outside in the dark night. Everything fades away until all that she can see is Luz. Their eyes don’t leave each other’s for what feels like eternity. They sway, transfixed, in perfect harmony. Her face is red, she can feel it, but this time she doesn’t look away. She feels the intensity and this time she doesn’t back down. Doesn’t give in to fear.

Their eyes stay locked until the song ends. Amity feels like she might genuinely drop dead on the spot from overwhelm.

Her breathing quickens. Her hands begin to shake. Luz also seems to be sort of freaking out, removing her hands from Amity’s, making some sort of excuse to go find her mum. Amity doesn’t hear it properly. She finds herself needing to sit down desperately before she faints. Her stomach is itching again.

-

The rest of the evening remains uneventful. Neither Luz or Amity mention that moment. In fact, Amity starts to feel like maybe she made the whole thing up in her head. Because Luz is acting totally normal, completely natural, whilst her insides are still convulsing just thinking about it. About her. Electricity won’t atop buzzing through her. The thrumming won’t just _leave._

When they get changed into their pajamas later that night and lay down next to each other, Amity waits until she is sure Luz is asleep. Quietly, she slips out of the bed and onto the floor, bringing Luz’s discarded jacket to her face and inhaling the scent deeply.

And then she throws the jacket across the floor, eyes stinging. Flings her head into her hands with mounting desperation. _Tomorrow_ she promises herself _I’ll teach Luz a spell. We’ll actually get somewhere. This will all be over soon._

She can’t risk getting attached.

-

_Friday 24 th July 2019_

_Dear Miss. Blight,_

_We are still working to resolve certain issues regarding your safety. We expect to be able to return you to the Boiling Isles in a fortnight’s time._

_Please be prepared._

_Signed, Lilith Clawthorne, by order of the Emperor’s Coven_

-

“Amity. Amity?”

She awakes to being shaken gently by Luz. It’s been a few hours since she received her latest letter and had almost passed out from anger. Luz had been there to calm her down, and they’d added the latest developments to their ever-growing mind map. But it hadn’t made her feel better. In fact, it had sort of made her feel worse. Here she was, three weeks into being dumped in the human realm and she was no closer to figuring out why the heck she was here in the first place.

Luz had hugged her tight, held her close. Amity may have cried a little, just out of helplessness.

Sunlight is streaming in through the living room window. Azura number 5 is playing on the TV, the gentle hum of it echoing through the morning air, and she finds herself having fallen asleep on the sofa. Lately, she’s been feeling tired more than usual. As if something is sapping away at her. Something that she’s unwilling to acknowledge, unwilling to think about. _Because it isn’t worth thinking about._

The funny thing is, she thinks, that what she should be loosing sleep over is becoming less of a worry to her than her stupid feelings for Luz. Because she knows it’s just a crush. A small inconvenient crush. It’s just because Luz has been so nice to her, hasn’t judged her when she’s cried and has let Amity be obnoxiously clingy. She knows it’ll pass. So why is it all she can think about? Running her hands through Luz’s hair, touching Luz’s rounded ears, running her fingers across those supple cheeks. She thinks about how t would happen if they kissed. How Amity would hold her face so gently, so carefully, and how it would feel like they were melting into one candle. Fire on fire.

_You’re a Blight. Blight’s don’t chase after what they can’t have._

“Ams….Amityyyyyy”. Luz is using her sing-song voice, which means Amity has been spaced out for too long.

She shakes her head throwing off all the voices that are drowning her sensibilities. _Shut up._ “Sorry! I’m awake!”.

“You said you’d show me another spell today, right?” She’s leaning all over the sofa, her long limbs splayed out. _She’s so relaxed. She’s completely oblivious._

She smiles, despite herself. _Why am I attracted to this idiot?_

“Yes. Yes I did”.

They sit in comfortable harmony on the sofa, Luz talking about all the spells she wishes she could learn and all the questions she still has about magic. Her hands move animatedly as she talks, emphasising each point that needs an extra punch and gliding carefully through each fluid motion of thought. Amity usually finds Luz’s gestures endearing, but now she finds herself looking away, knowing staring won’t do her any good. An idea is occurring. A brilliant thought.

“Luz?”

“Hm?”

Amity takes Luz’s arms, guiding them to the space in between their bodies. The sofa is beneath their intertwined fingers, brown and cavernous. She sort of wishes it would swallow her whole because her face is burning red from merely touching Luz’s stupid hands and she’s honestly about to lose it at her own blood flow. She moves the other girl’s palms gently so they cup together facing the ceiling.

“Remember the first spell I showed you?”

Luz’s eyes widen with excitement. “The light spell?”

“Concentrate on your palms, okay? See the way the lines connect and the skin grooves. Now, close your eyes”.

Luz obeys.

“Now”, Amity instructs, attempting to sound more confident than she really feels (was this a stupid idea?) “think of producing a yellow light. Imagine it rising out of your hands, out of those groves and lines. Envision it floating upwards”.

Baited breath. Quiet oblivion.

Nothing. Luz opens her eyes ruefully. “Sorry, I tried”

Amity feels the familiar disappointment seeping into her gut but tries her best not to show it. “It’s okay, I just wondered if it would work.”

“We’ll find a way, no sweat!”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re such a misguided optimist?”

A snort. A shared giggle. “No, but someone showed up recently and it’s now her job to tell me all that stuff”.

Amity feels the laughter heaving her chest up and down. She’s smiling wide (she can’t help it).

-

Camila is in the kitchen. _Dammit._

“Amity, my love, it’s very late?”

“I…I just wanted a glass of water. Um, sorry”.

It’s around midnight. Amity hadn’t been able to sleep (certain thoughts about a certain…girl).

Camila smiles, moving from her position on the sofa, padding into the kitchen. She gets a glass out of the cupboard and fills it, passing it to Amity wordlessly. Amity feels speechless at the gesture. Which is stupid. _Ed and Em would be cackling if they could see me right now._

“Camila…”

“Yes, mija?”

She swallows. “Can I ask you…why you’re being so nice to me?”

The dimly lit room highlights the smile lines on Camila’s face. When she smiles her eyes wrinkle and twinkle. “Sometimes you don’t need a reason to show a little kindness. But”, she sits down at the kitchen table and Amity copies her movements, “I suppose I see a little of myself in you, if I’m being honest”.

Amity feels herself blink. Camila laughs. “What I’m saying is that my home life when I was younger wasn’t easy either. I don’t know what you’re going through but I’ve looked for records, missing person reports, anything mentioning your name and I have found nothing”. Her eyes glow with something that Amity can’t quite read. “You’re struggling with something, that much I know. And Luz has grown fond of you, if I’m not mistaken?”

She feels herself nod, listless. These words ooze kindness. And Amity is lying right to her face. She feels the guilt, now so familiar, circling its way through her bones and making her feel incredibly sad. “I’m not who you think I am”.

“I’m sure you’re not. I just trust that whatever you choose to do, you’ll make the right choice.”

Closing her eyes, Amity breathes in and out. This love that she is being shown is something she knows now, for definite, she does not deserve. Camila _trusts_ her to do the right thing. She wants to please her, make her proud. But how? How can she make anyone proud when she’s still so clueless even after all this time, all these weeks?

And no one has ever told her they were proud of her. The feeling doesn’t fit in her chest, can’t sit right.

So she shakes it off, thanks Camila warmly for the glass of water, and pads back up to the bedroom. Luz is sound asleep, sprawled out across her side of the bed, but tonight Amity decides she belongs on the floor. The ceiling stares down at her as she lies there, trying to will her brain to think of something, _anything,_ that will fix everything.

-

“Amity”

“Hm?”

“Look”.

Amity looks, obediently, as Luz draws a glyph onto a piece of notepad paper. The glyph is well drawn; Luz is a natural artist.

It’s a summery Sunday. They’re in the local park sat underneath a big shady tree. Amity is wearing one of Camila’s vintage floral dresses, this time one with a yellow-y beige base.

“What is it?”

“It’s a glyph. Watch this, you’re going to lose your mind”

Luz places her hand on the paper and Amity feels her heart stop. Her jaw drop. _No way in-_

But there it is: a ball of light, rising from the paper and forming a perfect circle. It floats between them, glowing brighter and brighter until it lifts itself to rest above their heads. She can’t take her eyes off of it, squinting at the light, her brain refusing to register it as real.

But it is real. It’s really there. And _Luz…._ a _human_ ….created it.

Her eyes snap down towards Luz, who is still preoccupied by the orb. “How did you do that?”

Finally, their eyes meet. Luz smirks. “Told you I’d find a way”

“ _Grom_ Luz it’s unbelievable! I just…I can’t even…”

Luz’s smirk is growing larger and larger by the minute, spreading across her face. Her eyes narrow with mischief. “So mind-blown you can’t speak? I’m honored”

“ _How?!”_

“Well I couldn’t sleep last night so I got up and started messing around on my phone.” She takes it out of her pocket, producing a photo, “and I started to think about what you’d said the other day! You know, about the lines on my palms and how the light was supposed to come from there…”

“…no _way_ -“

“Yes way! I just figured if I drew them onto paper maybe I’d figure something out. It took me a few tries to get the lines right and then suddenly there was a glowing light and…well…you can see”.

Amity finds herself staring into the light again, absolutely transfixed. Absolutely mind blown. Deeply impressed. “Luz…that’s literally the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen”. She glances back down, unable to stop herself now. The excitement is coursing through her, making her drunk on her own emotions. “ _You’re_ the most incredible person I’ve ever met! And look at you! You’re human but you’re so smart and funny and kind and _pretty_ -“

Luz’s cheeks tinge red. Just a little. The world pauses on its axis. “You think I’m pretty?”

 _Retreat! Retreat!_ “Well…uh…YEAH but you know I’m sure you hear that all the time so, um, you know…it’s no big deal…”

But Luz isn’t looking away. Her earthy brown eyes won’t leave Amity’s alone. Time is slowing down. “I don’t”

“Huh?”

“I don’t hear that all the time”

“Really?”

She shakes her head, bows her eyes downwards to their hands, which, until this moment, they had both forgotten were still joined. She lets them go gently and smiles back up at her, but it looks forced. “I think you’re pretty, too”.

“Oh”

“Oh?”

“No one’s said that to me before”

Luz blinks once. Twice. Her face is red but so is Amity’s. They match. “That can’t be true”.

Amity smiles, her nerves still thrumming through her and causing her head to pulse. “I told you before, witches don’t really do affection. We’re not… _I’m_ not good at affection”

They’re even closer now. Or were they always this close? Amity can’t look away, doesn’t want to.

Luz bites her lip. “You’re good….with me”. She giggles to herself. “We’re a good team”.

Amity swallows, feeling a small sweat breaking out across her forehead. She can’t tell what Luz is thinking. “You know that’s probably weird, right? Considering I’ve barely known you for a month?”

“Yeah.” Luz sits back on her legs. The intensity fades, just a little. “I can’t explain it. I just…. _feel_ it. You’re a witch with a secret soft side, I’m now a witch with a dark side”. Amity giggles like a literal six year old with a crush. _Emira would be gagging._ “Ever since you showed up and left that glyph on the pavement I-“

“Glyph?”

“…yeah? Didn’t you see it?”

Amity’s heart rate is ricocheting now; pounding so hard her chest hurts. “No?!”

“I thought you saw-“

“I didn’t see! Luz we have to go _right now_ -“

And now they’re running away from the greenery and the trees and the peacefulness. This! This is the clue she’s been missing! This is her chance! She feels it crashing down on her like a tsunami of lava, all the anticipation and excitement and hope that finally there might be a clue. An answer.

She’s breathing hard, wind rumpling her hair. The pavement comes into view: the same as it was before. But when she looks closely, really _looks_ , she can see it all too clearly. The place she had landed weeks ago and sprained her ankle on was almost completely normal if you were to just glance at it. But it’s there! A clue in broad daylight she’s been missing!

A glyph. A glyph that Luz could now test in order to discover the spell behind it. A key, perhaps, back to her own world.

Luz’s face is lit with glee and when they hug it feels fierce and strong. With their bodies intertwined and their cheers mingling into the afternoon air, Amity feels things finally starting to come into focus.

-

_Sunday_

_Amity,_

_You need to come home as soon as possible. Hurry._

_From,_

_Ed and Em_

_(P.S We miss you)._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW that was stressful. Luz is my adorable and oblivious baby. Amity is my fragile needs-hugs baby. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! This is so much fun to write and I am so hyped to keep going. Also all your comments and love for this fic make me so so happy you're all so nice?! I love and appreciate you so much :')
> 
> Next update will hopefully be in 4/5 days time and I am so excited to share it with you! As always feel free to leave a comment because i love reading them AND if there are any incorrect Spanish words/phrases please correct me and I will edit in the changes (this is super helpful to me!). 
> 
> Sending you all lots of love. Keep safe and well and have a lovely lovely day x


	4. Part Three: Bittersweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Subtext. Confessions. Bittersweetness. 
> 
> Amity Blight is no low grade witch, but this is straight out of an Azura novel. And not in a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! The newest chapter is finally here and BOY this took me way longer than i thought it would to write. Like....holy shit this was difficult idk why,
> 
> Am I completely happy with this chapter? Nope. Am I posting it anyway bc it's almost 7k words and I need to stop adding to it? Yep!
> 
> And there's some cute stuff in here (wink wink nudge nudge) so I hope you all enjoy it! ALSO as few clarifications I thought I'd make (as pointed out by a few lovely readers!):  
> \- Amity gets away with her ears in the human realm because Camila, and everyone else, assumes they're those cosplay elf ears that people use for anime conventions/halloween. I know the logic is slightly dodge on this one but that's how it be sometimes ;)  
> \- In this canon divergent story magic works in the human and demon realm in the same way which is why Amity can use her magic in the human realm with no setbacks!!
> 
> As always, if you spot any Spanish mistake please lmk :) <3 Hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you down in the end notes xx

Her hands are shaking violently, breaths coming in quick waves that don’t satisfy her full lung capacity. Luz has a pencil in her hand and is drawing the glyph they had found on the pavement earlier onto a sheet of paper. The late afternoon light streams in through the living room window.

Luz finishes drawing and places the pencil neatly on the floor, returning to her cross-legged position, which mirrors Amity’s own. Their knees are touching (not that she notices this).

“Ready?”

“Ready. But move away from the paper after you’ve touched it. We don’t know what that spell is.”

Luz nods, concentration taking over her face. Amity tries to remember if she’s ever seen Luz this serious before, and finds no memory come to mind. It feels like she’s earned someone’s respect for the first time in her life without having to insert her family name into the picture. The thought makes her cheeks tingle.

The paper glows with magical energy and both she and Luz gasp as a neat purple circle emerges from the folds. Before she fully registers her body moving she’s pushing Luz to the ground underneath her and rolling them both away from the spell, which, having detected no nearby target, dissipates into the air.

Luz stares up at her from beneath Amity’s gaze, pinned down onto the brown carpet. “What was _that_?”

Amity blinks, registering the position they’re in before internally screaming and pulling Luz up so they’re both sitting across from each other again. Because looking down on Luz from that height had made the urge to kiss her (an urge that lived constantly in her mind) almost completely uncontrollable. She mentally slaps herself. _Get a GRIP you soft idiot._

“That was…. _Grom_ that spell was made illegal years ago!”

Luz frowns impatiently, pouting. “Ams, tell me what it was!” She flings herself back onto the floor. _She’s all drama. Which I love._

“That was a memory erasure spell. It has the power to erase recent events from the subject’s mind”. She sighs, running a hand through her hair and releasing the half-up do from its tight prison. The pressure of its pull is suddenly making her head hurt. “It was made illegal because it’s barbaric. No one should have their memory wiped. The Emperor found so many witches using it to create chaos so I guess he figured making it illegal would solve the issue”.

Amity can practically _feel_ the other girl piecing together the puzzle. “But if that’s an illegal spell, then who used it on you? And what memory did they wipe?”

She stares at Luz’s legs which are laid on the ground beside her, trying not to make eye contact in fear of saying something stupid. “I can’t remember how I got here, so…”

Suddenly, Luz is sitting all up in her face. “Wait a minute“ and then she’s bolting for the stairs. Amity feels confusion settle over her features as she gets up to follow, several steps behind. “What is it?”

But Luz doesn’t answer, heading straight to the sock drawer where the letters are stuffed in safe secrecy, rifling through them until she finds what she is looking for. Yanking the letter out of its envelope, she launches at her desk and grabs the yellow highlighter. When she finishes she holds the letter up to Amity’s face, smugness etched into every fiber of her being. “Call me a detective because I just found a clue!”

Highlighted in bright yellow lines are the words ‘Edalyn Clawthorne’ and ‘King’

And Amity feels her jaw drop. Because Luz is brilliant! Luz is brilliant!

“Luz you’re BRILLIANT!” She flings herself into Luz’s open arms and is being picked up and spun around. They start giggling like little children and Amity feels warm in all the places Luz’s body is touching hers. She’s being carried to the bed and flopped down onto it along with Luz herself who lands beneath her. And now she’s laying half on top of Luz.

Her face couldn’t be redder if someone highlighted it.

She tries to play it cool, even though Luz is looking at her, all deep brown eyes and bashful smile, and shoots her a grin. “I think you’re right.”

“I mean it makes sense. They’ve only just been made criminals, right? So Edalyn must have been the one to erase your memory. Unless you can think of anyone else?”

Amity shakes her head. No, she can’t think of anyone else who would do such a thing. And it really tied everything together! Edalyn had always disliked Lilith, her sister, for being in the Emperor’s Coven. Perhaps she had chosen Amity, Lilith’s apprentice, as some sort of bait in order to fight the system. Or something. But this made everything so much less ominous. Ed and Em asking her to come back, well, they probably just thought she was missing randomly? And her parents had obviously made sure the coven was tracking her safety, right? This all added up. This all added up which meant….

_I can enjoy all of this while it lasts!_

Luz is watching her think. She knows because the body beneath her hasn’t fidgeted much in the last few minutes, and Luz is a natural fidgeted. When their eyes meet Luz is grinning lazily at her, pale light on her face. And Amity just can’t help herself. She feels a hand reaching out before she can stop it, and she strokes Luz’s cheek with the back of her thumb every so gently.

“You’re so smart.”

Luz smiles, but its not her usual troublemaker smile. It’s small. Shy. Her eyes look…vulnerable.

“You’re going to be okay”. Her voice sounds small too. Sort of defeated. There’s something there, something Amity is perhaps imaging because she wants it to be there so badly. But the tenderness is unmistakable and she thinks that maybe. Just maybe….

-

That night Amity dreams.

She dreams that she’s in a dark room, lit only by a single white candle. There are shadows surrounding her, a cacophony of voices that all mumble incoherent words. In front of her stands Luz. But it’s not the Luz she is used to seeing and knowing. This Luz’s eyes are cold, hurt, full of despair.

“You're going to leave me”.

Amity feels her heart quickening, mind racing. “Luz I would never…I’m not going to-“

“Liar. You’re going to leave me. It was always meant to be.”

Her heart is shrinking. Has the room always been blurry, out of focus? Her ears thrum, thunder building inside of her. “Luz I’m not going to leave you!“

The voices coming from the shadowed walls get louder, more insistent. They’re chanting something, a phrase, over and over again and the cacophony begins to feel unbearable.

“Mortal souls will stake a claim,

Magic is learned through unfused vein.”

_Wasn’t that…the forecast from Witching WeekNightly?_

She wakes up gasping and panting desperately for air.

-

Camila kisses both their heads as she leaves for work the next morning, Luz makes her usual dumb jokes and they proceed with the mind mapping and the theories as per usual. But the way Luz’s smiles aren’t as bright as before, the way her eyes shine just a little less. It’s noticeable that something has shifted. Or at least, Amity feels a change of something she can’t quite place.

“Have you thought about it?”

“Hm?”

Luz sighs, exasperated grin taking over her face. It doesn’t fully reach her eyes. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you get home? Like what you’re most excited for…?”

Amity wants to say the right thing. What’s the right thing to say? Because the truth is she has thought of home, a lot, but not in the sentimental way Luz seems to be getting at. She wants answers, but things she’s planned on doing are slim to none. “I haven’t really. Maybe I’ll tell Ed and Em about the human world?”

Luz tilts her head to the side, cheeks pink. _Why are her cheeks pink?_ “What kind of human lore are you gonna share with them?”

“Top of my list is the grocery store. All that food, the displays, the lights….so weird!”

Luz giggles. “I still can’t believe the magical world has no grocery stores, that’s crazy to me!”

“It is pretty funny. And Grom, how would I even begin to describe you and Camila?” She fiddles with her hair, a nervous habit she’s picked up from being around Luz for so long, pulling on the end strands. “Everything you’ve done for me, all the Azura nights, the party we went to. There’s so much I want to tell them. I wonder if they’ll even care…”

“I think they will.”

Their eyes meet. Amity’s throat clenches. “You think?”

Luz’s eyes verge off to the coffee pot over on the kitchen counter. She stands, busying herself with making them both a second cup. And Amity knows something is amiss. Something she can’t quite explain but can see in plain sight. “Luz…what’s wrong?”

Her hands pause over the coffee pot, just for a second, before they continue to fiddle about. “Nothing”

“Don’t lie.”

A sigh. A slump of the shoulders. “Look it’s-“

“Don’t say it’s stupid. You’re not stupid, you’re smarter than most witches I know.”

She turns back around but continues to avoid Amity’s gaze. Instead she stares down at her thumbs, twiddling them. “The final part of the story is beginning, right?”

“…sure?”

“Which means it’s almost the end. Which means…we’ll have to say goodbye.”

Her heart stops. “I don’t want-“

“But you do! Of course you do!” She’s thrown her hands up in the air. “I’m being so selfish I can’t believe it! I just don’t want to never see you again because you’ve changed my life! I can’t even begin to imagine never seeing you again it’s just…it’s not FAIR!” Her whole body is shaking gently as she slides her back down the kitchen cupboards, landing in a neat pile on the floor. She brings her arms up to her face so Amity doesn’t see it. But Amity knows she’s trying her hardest not to cry (she’s never seen Luz cry).

In a flash she’s right there beside her, arms snaking around her waist and pulling her close. She doesn’t have time to let her thoughts overtake and ruin the moment because the one thing she wants is to reassure Luz that “I don’t want to leave you behind. It’s not selfish.”

A pause. Sniff. “You mean that?”

She squeezes tighter, rests her forehead against Luz’s beautiful dark hair and repeats the motion she’d tested yesterday afternoon, stroking Luz’s cheek with her left thumb ever so gently. This is starting to come more naturally to her, despite affection being a recent learning curb. Wiping away the tears, the uncertainty, and the sadnes, she smiles to herself. “No matter what happens, I’m finding my way back to you. Somehow.”

And Luz lets out a series of weak giggles, returning the embrace so they sit on the floor as one, bodies tied together. It feels different to their previous hugs: stronger. Amity loves her, she knows she does. These last few weeks spent here may be the only chance she has to tell Luz how she feels. How much Luz really means to her.

“I’m going to go home, but I’m not going to let you go.”

More sniffs. A small, hopeful voice. “Never let me go.”

-

Amity can tell Luz is slightly embarrassed at her outburst earlier, but she doesn’t let Luz get away with feeling it. They’re cooking dinner for Camila, a surprise from both of them, and she’s determined.

“I’ve actually _cried_ in front of you. Multiple times!”

Luz snorts. “For good _reason!_ ”

“And you being scared of me leaving isn’t a good reason?”

“You know I didn’t mean that, dummy”.

“You’re the dummy here.”

“Nah that’s you- HEY!”

Amity doubles over with laughter as the flour puffs across Luz’s face. “I’m sorry! I had to”.

She’s immediately rebuked when a mouthful of flour fluffs itself over her green hair and soon they’re both laughing hysterically and throwing flour at each other. Amity manages to get in a few prime target shots over Luz’s face, in her hair and all over her apron. Luz hasn’t got the best aim but still manages to spread flour across every inch of Amity’s skin (and Amity’s totally letting her).

When the laughter dies down, they find themselves splayed out across the kitchen floor lying next to each other. Faint remnants of giggles float between them. The kitchen looks like a wintery warzone. Amity’s heart feels like it’s glowing.

“Amity?”

“What?”

“…nothing.”

Amity rolls onto her side, using her left hand to poke Luz’s cheeks. She’s very fond of Luz’s cheeks (they’re really soft and squishy. She loves touching them). “What?”

Luz’s face is flushed. _From exertion, you nitwit._ “I keep forgetting…you don’t know it”.

“Teach me some?”

“You’d learn Spanish for me? What an honour!”

They both giggle, snorting unattractively. “Yeah”, she smiles and finds it fills her face perfectly. Like it fits. “It sounds so pretty”.

“Hm, okay…how about: qué reguero”

“What does that mean?”

“What a mess”. They giggle, shared breaths intermingling.

“That’s true. I’ll fix that”. And she does; sitting up and closing her eyes, she uses a simple spell to guide all the flour particles back to the bag. When she opens them again, Luz is standing and admiring the place. She turns around and clicks her tongue, throwing a peace sign. “Good job”.

They wordlessly move into motion again, continuing to cook. “Gimme something else?”

“What kind of thing do you want to say?”

Amity chews her lip. _Soemthing cool, something smooth._ “You look pretty today.”

Luz frowns. “Well, you’d say: te ves bonita hoy.”

Amity feels her confidence waver just a bit. But there’s only a few weeks left to say it, so, turning to face Luz, who is chopping a pepper, she says ”Te ves bonita hoy.”

But Luz just nods. “Yeah, just like that!” and goes back to chopping.

_Iloveyouiloveyouyouresoprettyiloveyouiloveyou_

"...Cool."

-

_Wednesday 31 stJuly 2019_

_Dear Miss. Blight,_

_We are continuing to arrange your return home, which should take place in a week’s time. Please be prepared to travel by then._

_Signed, Lilith, by order of the Emperor’s Coven_

-

“I have an idea.”

They’re sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, legs stretched out into the middle and laid against each other in silent harmony. There’s still a week left of Amity’s time here in the Noceda household so she’s trying to make the most out of it while she still has the chance. Reading human books with Luz is one of her favorite activities they do together. But Luz has obviously gotten bored of her book and is now grinning dopily at Amity, who feels the grip on her book almost slip. For no reason.

“What kind of idea?”

Luz slams her book shut with vigour, placing it beside her before leaning over so her face is closer to Amity’s.

“Amity Blight.”

“That is my name.”

“We should have”, she performs jazz hands, “a sleep over! You know, before you leave!”

Amity feels her brow quirk because….what the _titan_ is a sleepover? Luckily, Luz can still read her like a literal open book (which now she only finds slightly embarrassing) and she expands. “Like we do cute night time activities and tell ghost stories and maybe light some candles. The aim is to stay up past midnight!”

She feels herself blink once. Twice. _That sounds like….what we do every night but with props?!_

“So it’s a human thing? That you do with….friends?”

Luz shuffles back to her end of the sofa. The setting sun makes the curls on the very top of her head glow orangey-brown. She’s smiling softly to herself, like there’s an inside joke Amity isn’t quite catching on to.

“Yeah. A thing that friend’s do. That’s right.”

-

Luz won’t let Amity into her room while she’s setting up the ‘sleepover’ so Amity is talking to Camila in the kitchen. She finds the conversation flowing easily, which greatly pleases her and makes her wish even more that she wasn’t leaving this place behind so soon. She’s trying her best to store those thoughts away in the back of her mind for when the time comes, but it’s so difficult when Camila makes loving her so easy. The usual fear, the usual wariness she feels around authority doesn’t fit in with how she feels about Camila. Amity looks at her now: her hair is tousled easily in a bun, glasses falling ever so gently down her nose and her face beaming a smile (as always) as she busies herself with the washing up. Amity is so fond of her it makes her chest ache.

“-so then I told him there’s no reason he should have skipped all those meals and then drank that much coffee. Caffeine will do that to you if you’re not careful, I hope you know that too mija”

Amity grins. She can’t help it. “I didn’t know what coffee _was_ until a month ago.”

Camila pauses her dishwashing. “Qué?”

 _Shoot that was suspicious! Don’t be suspicious!_ “Oh! I just meant”, she fumbles over her words like a fool, “that I hadn’t TRIED coffee before, y’know?”

Another pause. A pensive look over her shoulder. Camila’s eyes show concern and…something else.

“Ah, that makes sense. Well anyway, how was your day with Luz? What did you both get up to?”

Amity feels her smile returning in full force before she can stop herself. It’s a gut reaction for her now to smile every time a Noceda speaks to her. They bring out her soft side.

“It was…nice.” She scratches her hair with her right hand, cheeks flushing.

“You two seem very close.” Camila puts the final washed dish down onto the drying rack, turning around so she is fully facing Amity. She emanates warmth. “I wonder…”

Amity tilts her head, questioning.

But Camila seems to change her mind about something last minute. The change in subtle, but Amity knows she’s holding something back. _What though?_

“I wonder whether we’ll be able to keep in contact with you when you decide what you want to do next?”

She hears glass sounds in her brain, the shattering of her fantasy version of the future wherein she stays in the house forever, loudly crumbling into fine pieces. Painfully. She stares down at her hands, determined not to give how she’s feeling away.

“I would like to. If you’d both want that, of course”.

She doesn’t hear the movement, doesn’t see the sunlit shadow approaching, but when she looks up again she sees Camila crouched before her, feels a hand in hers. “Cariño, listen, you’ve done so much for Luz and me. Of _course_ we would want you to keep in contact with us”.

Amity smiles, but this time it’s forced. The feeling of it not fitting on her face is all too familiar, all too easy.

“I…-“

“Believe me.” Their eyes are locked. Amity can’t see a lie in them anywhere. Just earthy brown. Stubborn and strong. “Anyone who is honest like you and makes Luz happy makes me happy.”

Heat is burning the back of her eye sockets. The room is growing smaller and smaller. Because Amity is not honest. Camila is wrong. _Liar. You liar._

“I appreciate that. Thank you”.

And suddenly there’s a commotion of cluttering coming down the stairs whirling into the kitchen. Luz stands with her hands on her hips, looking extremely pleased with herself. “Everything is set up to…” she trails off, finally registering the mood. “Is everything okay?”

Camila and Amity both stand at the same time. Amity makes her way over to Luz, feeling safer and more sure of herself with every step she takes. “Yeah! Everything’s fine”.

-

Luz has lit two candles which sit on either sides of the room, and the smell wafting through the air is _delicious_.

“What _is_ that?”

Luz grins, her hands forming finger guns. “Jasmine! It’s my favorite smell.” She flops down onto her bed sprawling out dramatically like a child’s rag doll. _Cute._ And then-

“Isn’t jasmine a magical flower?”

Luz sits up on her elbows, face illuminated by candlelight. “Well, they say here in the human realm that jasmine makes people reveal their secrets.” Amity isn’t sure if she’s imaging it, but…she’s positive Luz’s cheeks are red. Vaguely. Ever so vaguely.

She feels the excitement, the hopefulness, fizzing through her brain. This want she has to make Luz happy is so new to her because it's not brought on by necessity. Luz isn't her parents needing to be pleased with every report card she brings home, every prize she wins just to make them love her. Wanting to make Luz happy is the first time she's wanted to do something for someone without necessarily wanting anything in return. But...if it was returned?

She claps her hands together like an absolute try-hard. But she can’t help it: she’s happy. And before she knows what her body is doing she’s curled up next to Luz, grinning up at her from beneath those deep brown eyes. “You start.”

“Huh?”

“You know most of my secrets. Tell me some of yours!”

A momentary silence. Luz lays back down. They’re now both lying sprawled across the blue duvet, arms touching in the middle. “I’ve never had a real friend before.”

She snorts. “That’s not true”

“…it kind of is”

“Seriously? I would’ve pegged you as popular.”

She doesn’t have to look over to know that Luz is smiling that adorable bashful smile. One that she seems to save for her. _Just for me!_

“Well you pegged wrong. I’m kind of the resident weirdo. Your turn.”

She chews her lip. She wants to say something juicy so that Luz will tell her deeper stuff in return. “I don’t like my parents.”

A hum. “From what you told me about them, I don’t think I like them that much either. Okay, um….I’ve never met my dad.”

“I’ve never felt proud of myself…until recently.”

“I’ve never liked someone as much as I like you.”

“Me neither.”

Something shifts. It’s small but Amity leans onto her elbow so that her face hangs a little above Luz’s. “I like girls.”

“I like girls _and_ boys.”

Their eyes are doing that…thing…again. Burning into each other. Trying desperately to read the other’s mind. And Amity feels it, a surge of bravery. “I would kiss you. If…if you would want that.”

“You would?”

_You’re leaving in a week! There’s no reason to mess things up. You always mess things up._

“Yeah”. Her face is burning. SHE is burning. She’s going to die like this, telling a pretty girl that she likes her, like a fool.

Luz reaches up, runs her hands through Amity’s hair heart-wrenchingly slowly, threading them in, and pulls her down. And as she’s being pulled down Amity almost convinces herself she is dreaming because there is _no way that this is HAPPENING._

Their lips touch and Amity feels her chest deflate. They kiss: lips moving against each other a little clumsily but in the sweetest way. Amity’s hands cradle the back of Luz’s head and her thumbs splay out on either side of the other girl’s face, giving them both a firmer grip. Her heart is fluttering and all she can do is lean into the feeling that is setting fireworks off in her lower belly. Luz tastes vaguely like strawberries, sort of like sun cream, and she’s soft beneath her. Pulling Amity into her. Pulling and pulling and pulling. A perfect give and take, as if their bodies were made to fit together this way, their lips in tandem.

She feels the itch her stomach slowly forming a forest fire. Every place Luz touches her skin feels electric, the way she imagines wild magic feels. Those hands run from their grip in her green hair to the small of her back and travel their way up either side of her arms, ending up stroking each of her ears until she forgets how to think at all. Goosebumps erupt with every tender touch, every gentle movement of their lips. Her head is spinning and spinning and spinning and no logic wants to place itself into her consciousness. Because all she wants is to kiss this girl over and over again. There’s no planning for this, no fixing and solving and scheming. Luz’s lips are soft ( _unbelievably soft_ ) and her hands are cool against her wildfire skin. She’s sinking. They’re melting into one being, one entity, kissing so tenderly that it is absolutely atom splitting.

And as they kiss, as they _continue_ to kiss, behind her closed eyes Amity feels their noses bump gently, small nervous giggles escape between breaths. Every colour she’s every known erupts into the blackness behind her closed eyelids and when she opens them briefly to look at _her_ she sees those deep soulful eyes and that rumpled curly hair as her own: her Luz.

_This is what it feels like to fly._

_-_

They kiss for what feels like hours, days, but in actual fact is probably more like ten minutes. They kiss until Amity has no breath left inside her body, and presumably Luz doesn’t ether because they’re both panting comically hard. When they separate, Amity having rolled onto her back (hands still tied) they heave in gulps of air in perfect rhythm.

When they meet eyes again, Amity smiles so big her cheeks ache. She speaks first, mirth dying slowly to reveal her more vulnerable thoughts. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

Luz snuggles in close, still playing with Amity’s hair, which has long since been pulled out of its half up-do. She’s below Amity on the duvet (always, by at least two inches). “I obviously haven’t either.”

Shared snorts. And then “I don’t want you to leave”.

Silence folds itself across them. Amity feels reality start to sink back in. “I have to, Luz”

“But what if,” she’s now fiddling with their conjoined hands “what if I never see you again, what then?”

“That won’t happen. I won’t _let_ that happen”.

Luz’s face is unreadable, for a split second, before it reforms into the familiar happy-go-lucky smile. But she’s apprehensive. “Promise?”

She breathes in. Out. “I promise.”

“Good.”

“I want to kiss you again.”

Luz is whispering now. “Aren’t you scared? That it’ll make everything more painful when you have to go?”

“Definitely.” She meets Luz’s eyes, a small wave of nervousness flushing over her, “I’m scared of lots of things. Do you think…we shouldn’t have done it?”

Luz is silent for a moment, the only noise in the room being the gentle scrunches of her fingers threading Amity’s hair. And then she shakes her head, that familiar bashful smile forming on her lips. “I really like you, Ams.”

They fall asleep a long time after midnight, facing each other, kissing until their eyes just don’t stay open any more. And even when Amity feels the slumber take her under, the joy spills out of her in continuous waves of gold.

She knows that she’ll treasure this forever, no matter what.

-

Days pass and everything is normal except for the kissing. _Better_ because of the kissing. It’s still a novelty, but it’s now something Amity can do whenever she wants and it makes her feel giddy whenever she thinks about it too much.

Amity has taken her from behind, kissed the top of her head until Luz squirms with laughter and turns to face her, cheeks flushed. They’ve kissed in the grocery store in front of soup cans (to the strange disapproval of a few old ladies). They’ve kissed in the evenings in the safe darkness of Luz’s room, trading soft presses of their lips with secrets and stories and inside jokes. They’ve kissed on the kitchen counter, on the living room sofa, on walks around the neighborhood. And every time they kiss it heals a part of Amity she hadn’t even realized was broken. They haven’t put a label on it, an unspoken agreement, but it feels undeniably special. In her love-deluded mind she almost believes it was destiny that they would meet and fall in love, but she knows that’s going too far.

She hadn’t realized how close they really were, already, until they had kissed. But they already sit close together all the time, tell each other everything and lean into each other for warmth. This morning is no different: they sit on the kitchen counter, where just under a week ago they had thrown flour at each other and laughed until they were exhausted and lean into each other, sleepily. Coffee is brewing. The house creaks pleasantly. Rain (which is decidedly not boiling) patters outside the window.

Tapping. She can hear…tapping.

Well _that’s_ not normal.

It’s usually quiet this time in the morning. Everyone in the col de sac leaves for work early and then there’s simply a peaceful hum in the air until late afternoon. But that noise…tapping…is continuous. As if-

She feels her nerves spike. And when she glances at Luz, she knows it’s mutual. And Luz is one step ahead of her, as always, moving towards the window being tapped with caution and very slowly peeking out of it. Amity watches with bated breath. Slowly, the other girl peeks out through the glass.

Luz stumbles backwards, yelping, and Amity sees her: Edalyn Clawthorne. Outside the Noceda’s house in the flesh, her gray hair shimmers brilliantly and her smirk is almost identical to Lilith’s own devious grin. Amity can’t believe it. Can’t compute it all into her head, and suddenly she’s at the window with her face sticking out of it so she can be sure that this is real.

Eda speaks with chaos threaded into every word.

“Kids, we’ve got some catching up to do”.

-

They end up sitting in something very akin to a conjuring circle. Amity doesn’t leave Luz’s hands alone, firmly squeezing them every few seconds just to reassure her that even though this is _crazy_ she is still here to protect her. But in reality, she knows that the hand holding is probably comforting her more than Luz. Luz doesn’t really seem scared at all. If anything, she just seems awe-struck. _My dumb idiot._

“So who’s gonna start explaining this to us?”

“Us?” Eda questions, leaning across the space between them and getting a closer look at Luz. “Since when are you and Amity Blight an ‘us’?”

Luz stands her ground. “We’re a team”. Amity nods a little too enthusiastically in agreement.

Eda snorts. “Team? A Blight on a team? Never thought I’d see the day”

Amity casts her gaze downward, feeling her cheeks redden. “Look, Eda, I know my parents aren’t your…best friends, but” she fixes her with her best diplomatic gaze, “I _need_ to know what’s going on. Please?”

A sigh. The owl lady ruffles her thick mane of grey hair and exasperation paints her face. “That’s what I came for kid. Just listen up, okay? I’m only telling this story once.”

Collective silence bounds the circle. Eda grins, pleased.

“Well my sister, Lilith, contacted me a month ago begging me to join the Emperor’s Coven before she was forced to ‘bring me in’, as if she had any chance of doing such a thing. In the end we dueled it out as all good siblings do, and I won. For my victory I demanded to know why she was in such as state and she told me that Belos was planning something big. She said that if I wasn’t going to join the coven I might regret my choice very soon. Then she vanished into thin air like a coward.”

Luz looks completely baffled but won’t stop staring at the gem on Eda’s chest. Amity feels herself most drawn to the way the owl lady’s mouth moves, words seamlessly strung together with an effortless charisma she’s envious of. _But?_

“My parents work with the Emperor.” She narrows her eyes, chewing her lip. “Am I supposed to just take your word for it that he’s up to something weird?”

Eda folds her arms. “One of us here lives in a big castle and has actually never really known what her parents _do_ for a living and then was dumped here without consent. The other one lives in a run down shack and sells human nick-knacks for fun. I’m not saying you should take my word for anything but I am telling you this for your own good as well as mine.”

Amity nods listlessly. Her throat is hard and it’s difficult to swallow. “Continue.”

“Long story short Belos has always had it in for me but almost a month ago the coven really cracked down on outlaws. Made an official list and everything, which was all over the crystal balls. Makes it hard to pickpocket when your face is everywhere, let me tell you. But then, out of the blue, a bunch of talented young witches went missing off of the Isles completely, one of them being you.”

Luz’s mouth forms a shocked ‘o’.

Eda smirks, eyebrows raised (she obviously gets her kicks telling stories). “Suddenly half of the Boiling Isles’ younger population was missing and no one knew why. A few days after that all went down Lilith showed up at my door wanting me to do her a favour. In return for helping her out, she promised she’d find a way to heal my curse _and_ let me run free with my magic for good. That’s why they call me the owl lady,” She grins over at Luz. “Don’t suppose you know much about the Boiling Isles do you, kid? I’m kind of famous over there for my mischief.”

“No but I want to know! Oh, and question, what was the favour?”

Eda smirks. “To find the kids she dumped here and return them to the Boiling Isles. I came earlier than planned because things are getting worse and worse back home according to her, but she told me she was sending you letters to warn you about the return, am I right?”

Amity wants to speak, she really does, but her mouth won’t move. _Is Eda lying? Is she missing something?_

Luz speaks. “Why were they signed ‘by order of the Emperor’s Coven’ then if Lilith acted alone? And why did she need to send powerful witches away from the Isles?”

Eda is visibly impressed. “You’re a sharp one, aren’t ya? Well, Lilith wouldn’t tell me everything. Said if I knew too much it would ‘put me in danger’ or whatever”, she rolls her eyes, “but what I do know is that there’s a prophecy, the Emperor is freaking out and the witches sent away have something to do with it all. Can I have a look at the letters? Might help me piece _something_ together.”

Luz nods, lifting herself off the floor and gently dropping Amity’s hand in order to retrieve them from her sock drawer upstairs. When she pads back into the room a few minutes later and sits back down in the circle she hands them over to Eda before rejoining their hands. For a brief moment while Eda skims through the letters she and Luz make eye contact and communicate silently, like they’ve done it their whole lives. Luz’s eyes seem to say ‘this is too much, are you okay?’ so Amity tries her best to signal through her golden irises ‘I’m okay because you’re here’. Even though it feels tentative, the message seems to register. Luz leans forward and kisses her gently. It’s still a new feeling, being kissed, but every time Luz kisses her Amity swears it gets even better. She’s soft. _She’s made me soft._

She almost forgets about Eda’s presence until the owl lady clears her throat. “Well I’ll tell you this: Lilith didn’t write these under Coven authority. As for the newspaper thing, that’s part of the prophecy she told me about.”

“….are you sure it’s the same prophecy? Did Lilith send that as a clue?”

She nods, grey hair floofing around her ears. “I know my sister. Sending a pseudo magazine subscription renewal as a clue is just the kind of overcomplicated thing she’d do. But she’s only sent you two lines out of four, which is strange.” She looks around eagerly as if this is all a fun game she’s playing. Luz just shakes her head, but there’s something….an idea brewing in Amity’s mind.

“The emperor is trying to _expand his control to please Titan!_ ”

Eda doesn’t look convinced. “And how is sending a bunch of kids into the human realm gonna stop him doing that?”

 _Dammit._ “No idea. So…it wasn’t you who wiped my memory?”

Luz nudges her, chiding. But Amity doesn’t care about her bluntness right now. This _still_ doesn’t add up. Something is missing in this huge, complicated picture and she just can’t put her finger on it. But Eda shakes her head and suddenly Amity’s not sure she’ll ever solve this mystery.

Luz is chewing her hoodie drawstrings, focused on Eda. “Maybe he wants to _feed_ the witches Lilith sent here to the titan as an offering and she wanted to rescue them from his evil grasp? In fact…what species is the emperor?”

“Why he’s head witch of the boiling Isles of course! The second most skilled witch to have ever lived, me being the most skilled, obviously.”

A tap on her shoulder. She looks up, meets Luz’s eyes. She floods with warmth, a feeling she’s alarmingly attuned to.

“The emperor isn’t a witch, Ams”

The earth pauses on its axis.. “….he’s the leader of the Boiling Isles.”

But Luz’s eyes plead with her to understand. There’s something there. _Hope?_ “He might be looking for more power because he’s running out of magic. Because he’s not a real witch. Lilith sent you here because he was planning, maybe, to sap magic from witches on the Isles. I read something similar in a fantasy book once, and I know this is real life for you but…I mean, don’t you think it’s a possibility?”

And Amity wants to say yes. She desperately wants to say yes. But..

“I’m not so sure. I mean..if he’s not a witch, what is he?”

And the something in her eyes, whatever it was, flickers out like a flame. Luz stares at the carpet, folding her hands into her lap, and Amity’s skin feels cold where she left it. “I mean, I don’t know.”

-

Amity has to go back.

It’s been decided that Amity will head back with Eda in two days time as originally planned by Lilith’s letters. In the mean time, she’ll scope out the other kids who were similarly displaced and bring them back. Eda leaves the house with a homemade cookie, courtesy of Luz, and a promise to be back. But everything feels heavier the moment she leaves.

The air feels cold in Luz’s bedroom. Even though they’re both tucked under the covers trying to sleep everything is slowly breaking and peeling out of place. 

Luz is acting weird. She’s more distant, lying right on the other side of the bed facing away from her. Amity has no control over how to cheer her up. Because Luz isn’t stupid. Luz knows what’s about to happen. And Luz warned her this is how it would feel. But Amity hadn’t listened, just as she never listens to anyone, because she’d got it into her head that she could control the situation somehow. Fix things somehow. But this is so much _bigger_ than her. There are still hardly any answers and all she can feel now is trepidation and regret and longing for this all to blow over. What she wants is for Luz to be happy.

The silence is unbearable, and she realizes that she has changed. This time has changed her and she knows now how to be more affectionate. She’s been taught to only value things that solve problems her whole life. Her parents told her over and over again ‘there is no value in emotions if they do not serve your purposes’. But affection is the first thing she’s learned how to give and receive that doesn’t feel transactional and which doesn’t need to be. She can’t fix this, but she can still show how she feels.

_Be brave._

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to, but she shuffles across the bed until she’s right next to the back of Luz’s body. Gently and slowly, so Luz has the chance to tell her to stop, Amity wraps her arms around the smaller girl’s back and hugs her close to her heart, spooning her into her chest. She nestles her head into the crook of Luz’s shoulder, kisses the back of her curly head of hair gently. Her pulse is thundering in her ears, and it feels incredibly embarrassing, but it also feels so _right_.

For a moment there is no response and she begins to feel extremely self-conscious. _You’ve overstepped. You’ve made her feel worse and you’re being selfish._ But then Luz turns around to face her and her eyes are filled with so many things. But they cling onto each other, arms over shoulders, legs over legs, and warm each other. Amity imagines this will be the highlight of her life, the peak of her existence, and a dream that she’ll hold onto forever. Here, with Luz in her arms, she knows now that the itch in her stomach is the primitive thing her parents had warned her about as the most dangerous feeling in the world.

_Love._

_Grom help me._

-

She’s dreaming again.

Voices. Glares. Shadows.

“Mortal souls will stake a claim,

magic is learned through unfused vein”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGSTANGSTANGSTANGST I'M SORRY!!
> 
> Things are about to majorly spice up aka we're heading to the demon realm in the next chapter, so get ready for an emotional rollercoaster bc it's all coming to a head very soon! 
> 
> Next update will probably be in about a week's time just because I want the next few chapters to be really good and I'm used to writing fluff rather than plot so it'll be more of a challenge which I am SO excited for. I hope you've enjoyed reading this instalment of the story and that you're reading for (hopefully) the very best parts, coming soon!! 
> 
> I'm sending you all so much love (and thank you so much for your continued lovely comments and support, they make my heart so happy)! Keep safe and well and until next time xx


	5. Part Four: The Hard Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodbyes. Regrets. Confrontations.
> 
> Amity Blight is no low grade witch, but this is straight out of an Azura novel. And not in a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *Writing 6.6K words for this chapter and ignoring uni work*  
> Dissertation: Am I a joke to you??
> 
> Hi guys!! I am BACK with the penultimate chapter of this fic, a chapter which I really enjoyed writing bc I'm not used to exploring plots that much?? Idk this was super fun and I hope that you'll enjoy reading it! A lot of plot points get connected in this one AND there is some cute fluff at the beginning too :)
> 
> I'm genuinely so happy that so many of you are enjoying this...I can't believe I had the idea for this fic when I was half asleep one night and now we're HERE like...woah. 
> 
> Enjoy reading! See you in the end notes x

PART FOUR: THE HARD WAY

The problem is that she isn’t ready: no plan, no way to control how she feels. The problem is she is sure of the uncertainty that lies ahead. She wishes so desperately that there was a way to make everything easier. Less painful. She’s not used to her heart feeling heavy because no one has ever filled it up full before.

“I want you to have this.”

Luz accepts the piece of paper, which is folded neatly (four times into a perfect square). She goes to open it, but Amity quickly snatches it away again. “No opening until I’m gone! It’s…”, she stares back down at the note, “it’s for you to read when I’m gone.”

Luz’s eyes are so heavy they match Amity’s heart. “We still have today. One more day. What should we do with it?”

Curled up on the sofa with morning light on her face, Amity shifts so her entire body is curled against the other girl, burying into her. She smells like strawberries and sun-cream and jasmine and _Luz_. “Take me somewhere special? Somewhere only you know.”

Luz lets out a gentle laugh (Amity feels her chest rumble beneath her cheek). “Okay, I can do that.” But they stay curled against each other for a while, feeling the other’s body moving with each breath. This is it: what they write about in romance novels that she…definitely hasn’t read. Everything about them feels like it was meant to be. Amity swears it.

_But you know it’s not true._

_Nothing that good happens to people like you._

-

“This is much more civilized than our version.”

“Well, what’s your version like?”

Amity makes sure no one is sitting near them before she lowers her voice, murmuring quietly into Luz's ear. “You get rolled along inside a huge egg shell. It doesn’t smell great and it’s bumpy.”

Luz snorts with laughter earning them both a few irritated looks. Neither cares. Amity kisses Luz’s ear quickly, feeling her face heating.

“I wish I could see your world.”

Amity glances around the human ‘bus’. Passenger seats are spread out in rows, and each passenger is sitting far away from the other riders. There’s a driver at the front of the vehicle, and he’s wearing a funny looking cap.

She turns back to face her. “Maybe one day you will. But Luz, I think your world is perfect.”

Their eyes are locked, gold on brown, and Amity feels the itch in her stomach flare. There’s so much said when they stare at each other, like they can hold whole conversations through mutual gaze. She can’t help but say it.

“Fire on fire.”

Luz blinks and flushes, looking away and running a nervous hand through her hair, ruffling the curls on top. “Huh?”

Normally she wouldn’t speak her mind trying to voice something like this, but she knows Luz feels it too. “That’s what I think whenever I think about us. Fire on fire. An illumination.” And then she snorts at herself and feels her face burn. She places a hand over her mouth and turns her head away, flustered.

But Luz is having none of it. _Teaser_. “Whoa, Ams. Didn’t take you as a _sap!_ ”

Amity stares harder out the window, smiling despite the redness getting worse and worse. “Shut it, Noceda.” But when she’s pulled back around, when they kiss, a motion so familiar by now, she swoons just like she does every time. Because she’s weak. Luz is warm to the touch and the way she cradles Amity’s face makes the goose bumps erupt everywhere, every time. They’re both smiling, she can feel Luz’s trademark grin against her lips. _Sweet._

But all too soon, she’s pulling away, standing up, holding out a hand. The bus is slowing to a halt, and she realizes they’ve arrived at ‘somewhere special’.

They amble out onto the street, the tall bus stop sign giving away to….

 _No way_.

Hand in hand, Amity Blight and her best friend, her _girlfriend_ , stand in front of a seemingly average field with a hill in the middle. Except it isn’t average at all. It’s the exact same field as the one she’s seen so many times in the final Azura film where Azura and Hecate finally become friends. And the hilltop, smoldering with glorious summery sun, looks so breathtaking Amity thinks she might pass out.

She realizes she’s been gob smacked for too long when Luz waves a hand in front of her face, giggling. “So, what do you think?”

“It’s…”. She’s about to say ‘it’s fine’. But it’s better than fine. “It’s perfect. You just happen to live so close to this hill?”

Luz grins, eyes squinting smugly. “When you love Azura, you Google where everything was filmed!”

“Grom you’re so pretty.”

“Wha-?”

“Nothing!”

“You like me!”

“I mean…obviously…”

“You looove mee!”

“…WELL let’s go walk around this field since we’ve come all this way!”

-

They spend the afternoon exploring, running up and down the hill, and ending up sprawled out in the middle of the field. Wheat stalks permeate their vision of a golden blue sky. Nothing much happens except they _talk._ But talking with Luz isn’t just forming words. Talking with Luz feels so easy, like she’s letting herself be known for who she really is. She learns Luz wants to write stories when she’s older, wants to go travelling and wants to learn more languages. Luz learns that Amity is forced to dye her hair green but that she actually likes her natural brown more, that she isn’t sure _what_ she wants to do and that she’s never disobeyed any rules. They talk and talk and talk and everything just…expands. Her heart expands.

And eventually, when the talking patters out, they lie in comfortable silence, hand in hand. The clouds swell in puffs. Amity rolls over so she’s leaning above Luz.

“I really like you.”

Luz smirks. “You’ve told me that already! I really like you too.”

But Amity strokes Luz’s cheeks with her thumb, a habit she can’t quit. “No, I mean, I think you should have more faith in yourself. That people will like you, you know?”

Luz stills. “…It’s harder than you think to really feel that way.”

She sighs, smiling softly. “Trust me, I know. But I just have to say it. Because you’re so special and you don’t even know it.”

Luz’s eyes swim with emotion, her smile wobbly. But she doesn’t cry (Amity still hasn’t seen her cry), but she’s being pulled down until they are nose to nose, lips so close. “I trust you.”. Because saying all of that back to Amity, it’s not necessary. She knows what Luz means.

For a while, they decidedly don’t talk, trading gentle kisses and letting the warm breeze fill the silence. They sink into the feeling. For a moment, there is overwhelming peace.

-

The three of them, Luz and Camila and Amity, sit around the dinner table. Despite the meal being one of Amity’s favorites that Camila makes, she is finding it quite difficult to swallow. The sun had set too quickly. The night is drawing to an end too quickly.

“And you’re sure that this…Eda…is going to take you home safely and look after you?’ Camila is trying her best to be happy for her, Amity can tell, but she also seems pretty unable to swallow any food. She wonders whether it’s another nervous habit, being unable to eat, that she has picked up from the Noceda’s but the thought instantly makes her feel worse.

Amity nods. She wants to form words, coherent sentences, but her tongue is heavy. Her mouth is dry.

“Okay then, cariño. You _will_ let us know when you’re back safely though? And you’ll text Luz? And you’ll use our number and call us every now and then?”

_Don’t tear up don’t tear up don’t tear up-_

“I will. I’ll miss hearing your voices. So I will.”

Luz is staring down at her food, not eating. Camila is glancing back and forth between both of them, clearly thinking.

“I will miss you, mija. You must come and visit us when you can.”

And her eyes are watering; she just can’t help it. Because Camila leaves early for work, this is the last time she’ll properly get to see her face, and the thought makes her insides lurch. They hug and she feels the guilt consume her. Because Camila isn’t her mother, but she wishes she was. _Does that make me ungrateful? Does that make me awful?_

“I’ll miss you too. And…thank you.”

-

“Have you packed the dresses mami gave you?”

“Yep.”

“The highlighter I wrote your name on?”

Amity rolls her eyes, but the blush is still on her face. “Duh.”

“The letters?”

“Yep.”

“…me?”

She turns away from the small gym bag Luz has lent her to throw her small collection of things in. The sight she is met with is Luz, her Luz, staring at the floor. But there’s something…dripping onto the carpet.

Tears. Luz is crying.

She steps forward, wanting to hug her, but pauses. She’s not sure what to do, how to help in the best way. Was it too much to hug her, would it make her feel worse? She pads forward slowly, carefully, until she’s a breath away from her, and she places her hands on Luz’s hunched shoulders. They tense for a brief moment and then slouch. She slumps forward into her embrace. Eda will be here any minute. This will all be gone in any minute.

_Be strong._

She rubs the small of Luz’s back, coos into her hair ever so gently. She lets Luz cry and they sway together in the middle of the room. She feels the sobs against her own body, and lets them wash over her. But she doesn’t cry, can’t cry, because in this moment she has to be the strong one. When Luz lifts her head, Amity knows just what to say.

“Remember when we danced? Back at that party?”

Luz doesn’t speak, just nods, but her eyes are full of tears and understanding.

“Well, that’s when I knew how much I cared about you.”

“Me too.”

Amity blinks. _What?_

“But you never said anything!”

“Um, neither did you until ages later!”

And the sadness lifts for a moment as they giggle weakly, Luz still in her arms holding on tightly. They sway some more.

“You have to read the letter. When I go, you have to read it, okay?”

Luz touches their noses together. Amity’s head spins, even after all those many times before. “I will.” She digs around in her pocket, pulling out something…a letter…and placing it in Amity’s dress pocket. “I wrote one for you too.”

“I’ll read it as soon as I’m there.”

Amity smiles. It’s watery. Their eyes are once again fixed together, but this time it feels less like fire on fire and more like a mutual desperation. She lifts Luz’s arms, puts a hand on her left shoulder, and they begin to dance around the room ever so slowly. She’s wearing the same dress she wore to that party all those weeks ago, and Luz has the same uncertain look in her eye. And with every turn they take, every swirl, Amity hears the nonexistent music grow quieter and quieter until they stand still again in the middle of the room, foreheads touched together and breaths intermingling. It feels like she has lost something, even though she is still physically here. It feels like she’s about to lose everything.

Tapping. The glass begins to shatter in her brain, echoing through her mind.

_It’s time._

She releases Luz, gently, and walks back over to the sofa where she’d left her bag. Picking it up, she examines the contents one more time: her letters, her highlighter, and her dresses. She puts on a smile because she doesn’t want Luz to cry anymore.

Eda is waiting. She picks her bag up and slings it over her shoulder before taking a last look at the downstairs of the Noceda’s house for the last time. The warm brown colour scheme still invites her in the same way it did the first time she laid eyes on it and the yellow lamp and orange table cloth still make something about the place feel so much like home. The smells of cedar wood and jasmine and sun cream still hang in the air. She breathes it in before tearing her gaze away, focusing on Luz who is stood by the door chatting to Eda.

“Yep. The portal works just like that. You press the key down and the door comes to you! Cool, right?”

“SO cool! Do you think the emperor would approve?”

Eda snorts. “I don’t need anyone’s approval, _especially_ not the emperor’s. He can eat carcasses.” She glances up from staring down fondly at Luz who Amity notes she seems to have taken a liking to. Their eyes meet. “Ready to go, kid? You’ll be staying in the owl house for a little while, just while we figure things out.”

Amity nods. _I want to stay. I don’t know what’s about to happen. I’m scared._ “I’m ready.”

Luz hugs her fiercely, their bodies squishing. It’s warm: a summary of everything she’ll miss. “Read my letter. Get Eda to notify me when you’re there safe. Find a way back to me, okay?”

She strokes Luz’s cheek softly. Her eyes are still watering. There is a strange beauty in them, the brown of her irises shiny in the water. Soulful and full of feeling. But maybe that’s just because she is beautiful, and everything she does becomes beautiful by default. “I will. You’re my favorite person, Luz. And I’ll see you soon, I promise.”

“You’re my favorite person too. Favorite-person-who-I-also-want-to-kiss.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

They share a small laugh.

“Promise?”

Amity takes Luz’s left hand and draws a purple ring around their intertwined fingers. She breathes in and out. Meets Luz’s eyes. Fire on fire. And when the magic circle seals itself and shatters into the air, she kisses her on the forehead. It’s very soft, closed lipped and gentle. A goodbye. A promise. “I promise.”

“What was that?”

Amity’s mouth is dry. She’s all talked out, can’t say it without the tears welling in her eyes threatening to spill. Eda, thankfully, interjects kindly. “A witch’s oath. It means Amity is bound to her promise with magic.”

Luz smiles at Eda, leans in and kisses Amity sweetly once more, and then steps back into the doorway without her. As they step through the owl lady’s portal, Amity tries her best not to look back. She knows it’ll be worse if she does. But the itch in her stomach is scratching at her insides painfully and just before the white light engulfs her completely she risks a peek. She sees it: Luz crying.

Her heart rips at the edges.

-

The owl house is slowly being filled with other kids Amity doesn’t care to converse with. Not because she’s snobby, she’s past that attitude that was never really hers to begin with. Her heart just…hurts. She wants to be alone. Slinking up the stairs (Eda is using the living room as a portal space) she finds a small, empty room filled with boxes and miscellaneous objects. _Perfect._

She knows it’s a little irrational, but she desperately wants comfort of some kind, and she needs to give Luz some space, just for now. So she searches, finds a crystal ball, and contacts the two people she’s missed the most.

“GROM ALMIGHTY MITTENS! YOU’RE OKAY! Ed? Ed, it’s Mittens!” Emira is smiling so wide her face looks like it could split in two, and Amity can’t help but feel her cheeks warming. Emira looks vexed. “Wow, the Amity I knew would _never_ have flushed so cutely. Tell us what happened right now! I need d e t a i l s!”

Ed runs into the twins’ shared room, assumedly just having been in the kitchen because his apron is still on, a little lopsided. There is cookie dough on his nose. “Holy titan! Mittens are you okay? What’s been going on?”

_Idiots. Can’t believe I’m related to these dorks._

“Well, it’s a long story.”

They roll their eyes, completely in sync, as always.

“Obviously.” Em.

“Now spill!” Ed.

She finds herself beginning, a little slowly at first, and then finds that she can’t stop. She’s careful to leave out the more…private details. She isn’t quite ready to share everything about Luz, how she feels about her, because it’s still a little painful and she wants to keep it all to herself, just a little longer. But she talks about the Noceda’s, their house, the kindness, the grocery store, the buses in the human world and teaches them the Spanish she knows. It feels like hours of her simply rambling but every word she shares makes her feel a little lighter, a little happier. Vague chaos echoes through the house, but she doesn’t care. She needs this.

When she finally finishes, Ed sighs. “I’m glad you weren’t in any danger, then, but when you went missing… we were scared.”

Em nods. “Mum and dad wouldn’t tell us anything. Said that we couldn’t know but that you were fine. But you know what mum and dad are like. Did you ever get that note we sent you?”

Amity nods feebly. _They missed me?_

“Why didn’t you write us back? We were really…”, Em chews her lip, “we were really worried.”

Amity feels her eyebrows rise, unable to resist. “I didn’t know how to send it back here. And since when did you two go soft?”

They both giggle devilishly. “Since when did _you_ go soft mittens? You seem way more chill than you were before.”

Amity lets herself smile. “No reason.”

“So, when are you coming home? Should we keep quiet about you being back?”

She nods. “I don’t know any more than you do. Hopefully soon, but don’t say anything to mum or dad, okay? I’ll…I’ll let you know.”

They both nod but neither twin looks entirely satisfied. But it’s all she can give them, so she hangs up the crystal ball and pads back downstairs to Eda’s living room.

-

“So what we know so far”, Eda points with a stick at the whiteboard, a weirdly human looking object she seems to just casually own, “is that you were all sent to the human realm because Lilith got freaked out about some plot of the emperor’s. We also now know that the forecasted prophecy was banned from the newspaper ‘Witching WeekNightly’ by the emperor’s coven due to ‘misleading information’, which means it was probably a clue to our puzzle.”

Amity is sitting on the floor of the living room surrounded by a bunch of her classmates that she’s either never spoken to or doesn’t like very much. Even though she’s not alone, she feels lonely. She wants Luz to be sitting next to her, keeping her warm.

Lilith, who is sat behind them on Eda’s sofa, stands and moves to the whiteboard, snatching the stick off of her sister. “Well, you’ve almost got it right.” She turns to face the kids, and Amity, with a serious look on her pale face. “Emperor Belos has been doing something…disgusting…for years. I thought if I stayed in the coven I could eventually persuade him to change his ways but alas this was not the case.”

Amity feels the impatience foaming in her blood. “So, what is he doing?”

Lilith frowns. “Miss. Blight, listen to your superior when she is talking.” The offhanded coldness washes over her like ice. Lilith is nothing like Camila. She isn’t warm. There are no smile creases on her face.

The other kids are looking at her. Probably because they’ve never seen her question authority before.

“The emperor has been…harvesting witch’s magic. For his own gain.”

_….what?!_

“He himself is a weak witch. He used to get his power from the titan, but then the titan stopped supplying the magic when he started to become a dictator. Titan didn’t like the way the emperor was using his powers, so Belos had to look elsewhere for his resources. He started small, with members of the coven donating their magic in small doses to him. He told us it was an honour we would wear on our shoulders forever, better than any crown. I, myself, am magically drained because of this.”

Lilith writes important phrases on the whiteboard like she’s teaching a Hexside class. “You were all next in line to be drained of your magic. He had planned to do it in small spurts, just take a little from each of you occasionally, and then wipe your memories of it ever happening. Well, I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I snuck across the Boiling Isles one night in a panic and sent you all to a place I knew he couldn’t find you: the human realm.”

Eda looks mildly impressed. Amity feels the horror spreading through her gut, making her feel queasy. Mutters flutter across the room, all the kids Amity doesn’t really know also evidently shocked. She scans the clusters and spies her: Willow Park.

_Later._

But this is now. “So what are we going to do?”

Lilith raises her eyebrows, annoyed. Usually, the disapproval would make her insides squirm but, right now, they’re already squirming. “Well, that’s why we’ve called you here to the owl house. We need a plan, and fast, before the emperor has a chance to wipe your memories again.”

_No. Nononono._

“I can’t believe he wiped our memories! _How_?” Willow speaks, her voice squeaking.

“None of you will remember, hence the spell, but before and after he…drains…the magic from witches he puts them in the conformitorium and wipes their recent memories. It’s to stop you from kicking up a fuss, I think. That’s what I mean: he’s getting desperate and sinking lower.”

Eda is chewing on the whiteboard stick in thought. “So we fight back, right? That’s the only option here. I’m sure as heck not standing for that.”

Lilith nods, small smile slipping onto her face. Her eyes soften, just for her sister. “I’ve wanted to please the emperor my whole life. I worshipped him before I joined the coven. But this, all of this, is wrong. And I want to remove your curse. Once he’s out of the way the healing chamber will be…available for use, I assume.”

They lock eyes, grinning. Amity is struck by how alike they look, both pointy chins and sharp noses. She’s never quite noticed before, but they’re definitely sisters.

“Well kids”, Eda turns to the small crowd, flicking her hair gracefully over her shoulder, “we can’t ask for your assistance. But if any of you would like to help us, we need decoys, distractions, so Lilith and I can get the main action going at the castle. Anyone up for it?”

_For Luz. For my future._

“Yes.”

Everyone is staring at her. Whispers of ‘a Blight helping…?’ and ‘Amity being nice?’ swim around her. She feels a little small, a little vulnerable. She doesn’t like it, but this isn’t the time for backing down. Not when there’s so much at stake.

“Me two.” Willow.

“Me three”. Gus.

A few other kids she doesn’t know chime in.

_You’re not alone._

Eda claps her hands together excitedly. “Okay, great! Now, here’s what I’m thinking.”

-

She can’t sleep. The ceiling isn’t familiar enough. She misses Luz’s body warmth.

Fumbling around in her pocket quietly, she retrieves the note Luz wrote her before she left and unfolds it. She might as well read it now before everything goes haywire.

_Ams,_

_I miss you already._

_I mean, technically, while I’m writing this you’re still here. You’re sleeping on the sofa (you always fall asleep on the sofa!) so I’m writing this quickly before you wake up. Um…anyway, I just wanted to say thank you, I guess. I’m not going to be too dramatic and say my life was nothing before I met you because that’s not true. My life was fine._

_What I’m trying to say is you didn’t make my life ‘complete’ or anything cheesy like that. You just…made me happy. Made me feel wanted. I was so excited when you opened up to me. I was so happy when we danced (I had butterflies in my stomach). I was so nervous when we kissed for the first time because I wanted it to be good…and it was!_

_It’s really hard to describe what I mean but what I’m trying to say is that you made everything feel fuller when nothing before had felt quite full. I hope that makes sense? It makes sense to me._

_I love you. Whatever version of ‘love’ I can feel at fourteen anyway. I know that’s how I feel about you._

_I hope you do find your way back to me. Somehow._

_Love,_

_Luz_

_P.S I figured it out. You’re the Hecate to my Azura. That’s us!_

She’s slipping out of the sleeping bag before she knows what she’s doing, padding into the spare room where no one else is sleeping before she sinks back down to her knees. She rereads the note over and over, tears filling her eyes. Then she folds it back up very carefully, replacing it in her pocket, before curling in on herself and letting the tears fall. She didn’t sign up for this: this painful feeling that is filling her body like cold water. It hurts her chest, makes her breathing funny. And, ironically, she knows the one thing that would make her feel better would be to see her face, even if she couldn’t touch it.

“Amity?”

She bolts upright, feverishly wiping away the tears, but they refuse to disappear and spill relentlessly. But she doesn’t want Willow to see her like this. “Please leave me alone.” But her voice wobbles.

Willow pauses in the door, unsure, before she comes in anyway. Her hair is ruffled from tossing and turning in the beanbag, and her glasses are slightly skewed on her face. Her gaze is determined.

“Amity, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” _Grom, why am I choking on my own voice?_

“I’ve never seen you cry. Just tell me?”

She’s sitting down next to her, their bodies close enough that if Amity really wanted to, she could ask for a hug. When they were friends, before Amity’s parents told her to stop speaking to willow, they hugged all the time.

“It’s stupid.”

“Maybe. But a lot of things are stupid.”

“I…I fell in love…and now….” Now she can’t finish the sentence.

Willow rubs her back as she cries for a little bit, shushing her gently. “Amity, it’s okay.”

And suddenly, she feels the guilt that she’s suppressed for a long, long time well up inside her chest, making the tears fall harder and faster. “Willow, I-I’m sorry…Willowimsosorry.”

_Breath._

She tries again. Turning to face her. Her former best friend.

“Can I…can I tell you what really happened that day? The day I told you we weren’t friends anymore?”

Willow winces visibly, her face clouding with sadness. “Look, it’s in the past-“

“No. I think I owe you an explanation.” She sniffs and sits up properly. Takes another deep breath. “My parents were angry with me. They didn’t like…they didn’t you because you weren’t as strong as me or whatever. They said if I didn’t end our friendship they would ruin your chances at any kind of decent future. And then my mum. She…she told me that I was worthless. She said I was worthless to her unless I followed her orders. And she…she asked me why I wasn’t like Edric and Emira.”

“… _what_?”

“You were never too weak to be my friend. I was too weak to be yours. But I couldn’t stand the idea of my mum and dad hating me, and they loved Ed and Em so much and I didn’t want to be a disappointment even though I already _felt_ like one and I just felt so angry at myself and”, she trails off, the tears coming back.

“You took it out on me because you hated yourself?”

She nods. It’s difficult to admit it, but she owes it to her. “I’m really sorry. I know it doesn’t make up for it but…you’re a really good person, Willow. I just,” she turns away and hunches herself over, “I didn’t want you to think it was your fault. It was all me.”

She feels a hand on her shoulder. “Look, Amity, that was when we were both kids. I…I think I understand now why you did it. It doesn’t make up for it but…I’m willing to try again, if you are?”

She shuffles around, facing her. _Be brave like Luz told you to be._ “Yeah. Definitely.”

They share a smile. Tentative, but a smile nonetheless, and Amity feels that something good has come from all this, even if she has lost so much.

“So tell me more about this girl?”

And Amity giggles, feeling the red flush scald her cheeks. She can’t stop herself. Willow raises her eyebrows, impressed. “Wow you are _whipped_ Amity.”

-

“Don’t push, Gus.”

“Sorry I’m just nervous!”

“Guys be quiet, we’re almost there!”

The conformitorium fades into view from the back of the truck, towering over them ominously. Amity’s never seen it up close before because…well…why would she ever have come here before? But now, here in the flesh, she understands why there are so many horror stories about it. The walls are dark grey. The bars look extremely stiff and immovable. The entire place reeks of emptiness. Desolation.

She gulps. Willow also swallows loudly. Gus squeaks.

“Never thought I’d see this place”, she turns to the others, shivers running across her body.

“Never thought I’d see a _Blight_ in this place”, smirks Gus. Amity goes to retaliate but finds herself grinning instead because…he’s right. “What can I say? Stepping on the grass, we’re just so rebellious.”

Willow snorts.

It’s all part of the plan. Their plan. She and the other kids get thrown in the conformitorium and get brought before the emperor during nightfall. Eda and Lilith sneak into the castle while he’s distracted, wreak havoc, and they take down Belos at his weakest moment. His least magically charged form. It’s not perfect, she acknowledges, because many factors seem to have at least some means of going wrong. But it’s a plan and plans make Amity feel safe.

In her ‘squadron’ there is her, Willow and Gus. The other groups of kids being sent to the prison will be coming throughout the day as they break minor rules all across the Boiling Isles, and then the plan will commence in the evening under the cover of night.

When they’re placed in the cells, Amity feels an unfamiliar sense of adventure that she knows Luz would be proud of. Adrenaline courses through her veins. Now is the waiting game. Now is the calm before the storm.

She watches as the kids taking part arrive in the back of vans, slowly feeling the energy build p inside her, She sees her old associates: Skaara and Boscha. Others follow.

_I am ready._

-

Nightfall.

Willow and Gus are behind her, ready.

A guard appears from the blackness of the night, unlocking their cell’s padlock. Gus lets out a small whimper of fear.

“Pipe down pipsqueaks.”

Amity snorts, her nose scrunching. “Why don’t _you_ ‘pipe down’?”

The guard straightens up, hands on the cell bars. Although the mask covers his face, the irritation is visible. “Listen here kid. Be obedient or I..I’ll-“

“You’ll what? Tell my parents?” She grins, moving to the bars. “I’d like to see you break the news to them, that their daughter is about to be magically drained, _pipsqueak_.”

He swallows, but doesn’t say anything else. Willow glances at her and they share a smug grin as they are led down the back of the prison through the winding grey hallways. Amity knows that this is it; this is the moment that decides everything. She walks with confidence that she doesn’t feel, struts with as much guts as she can muster.

-

The castle is quiet. The walls are golden yellow and yet the awnings and tall steep poles manage to intimidate rather than please the eye. She feels the restlessness consume her; the desire to hold Luz’s hand on her mind. They’re padding obediently behind the guard as they cross hallway after hallway, corridor after corridor. Along the route, other guards with the other kids join their procession until there are at east twenty other kids alongside her, Willow and Gus being led through the castle towards the emperor. Like cattle. Like offerings to a false god.

Silently, she takes Willow and Gus’s hands so she is leading them from within the middle. She feels comfort in giving comfort as they finally are brought to a halt outside a tremendous set of double golden doors. The guards line up outside of them, all placing their hands behind their backs in perfect uniformity. When they speak, the toneless volumes wash over Amity’s body making her shiver.

“It is time for you to play your part in the making of the greats. Please form a line and enter Belos’ chamber one at a time.”

She ends up at the front. Because of course she does.

The doors open into the widest room she has ever seen. It’s even bigger than her parents’ mansion rooms, huge beams hanging from the ceiling. The throne is made of pure gold. Stained glass light reflects eerie shades of red and purple across the mauve carpet that leads to his lounging figure. He sits on the throne with one leg crossed over the other, staff in his right hand. Emperor Belos. 

“Come closer, child. Let me see.”

She is swept towards him, her body carried on a gust of wind so powerful she feels sick when she is brought to a halt before him, forced to kneel so fast her bones crack. Her eyes are stinging with fear and her throat is incredibly dry. His voice is deep and charismatic, as if this is all a part of his favorite game.

“Ah yes, Amity Blight. I was expecting you.”

She wants to scream, spit out curses, but all that rises in her throat is bile. _Why is everything spinning?_

“I did assume you would bring her with you”, he muses idly, twisting his staff so her head is forced upwards to meet his eyes directly, “and yet you kneel before me alone. Pity.”

He changes his staff over to his other hand, twiddling the stick. Amity finally feels the anger pulse through her, giving her enough energy to form words.

“Without _who_?”

She watches as the mask reveals nothing. A chuckle, dark and rich in mirthless humour, rumbles through the static air. Every hair on her body feels like it’s spiking. She feels sick.

“I had hoped”, he murmurs to himself lazily, “that you would have figured it out. I wanted this to be fun. A challenge. But even though you were cast together with a human, a _human_ of all things, you still couldn’t see the prophecy unfolding right before you.”

She is being lifted into the air, kicking and struggling but unable to break free. Her veins pulse. “Figure out WHAT?!”

The emperor releases her and she crumbles to the ground, limbs heaping helplessly into a pile of mush. Through the air, he guides his staff, forming letters out of magical light. A prophecy. He is writing a prophecy. She mutters each word aloud to herself as he writes, trying to understand. Willing herself to know.

**_“Mortal souls will stake a claim,_ **

**_Magic is learned through unfused vein._ **

**_Two illusions come from blood;_ **

**_A duel of fates then comes the flood.”_ **

Shivers start to vibrate through her spine. Because…’mortal souls’…that was a reference to witches and humans, right? And magic learned through unfused vein…that was referring to…to _Luz_ learning magic, right?

_This can’t be happening. This can’t HAPPEN._

“I swear to Grom”, she meets his masked face, begging her voice not to waver, “that if you even lay a FINGER on Luz my family will come after you SO FAST-“

But he is laughing. He is _laughing_.

“Your parents agreed to this, my child. They knew where their true loyalties lie.” He raises his staff, pointing it at her. “Soon, you will too.”

She closes her eyes, wincing. She’s screaming at her body, wiling it to move, but her bones are frozen solid and all she can do is close her eyes.

That’s when she hears a clap of thunder. An opening of doors behind her. Suddenly the emperor’s staff is pointed elsewhere, he is whirling around in confusion, and she is rolling to safety behind a beam. Panting, panicking, she whips around to the source of the commotion and sees them: Eda and Lilith, dueling the emperor side by side. But her eyes focus in on the third member of their party: a nimble, dark-skinned, brown-haired girl who is slinking around the edges of the room unnoticed, plastering glyphs to each wall.

Luz Noceda is here.

Luz Noceda is in _danger_.

While the duel rages, flashes of yellow and blue magic clashing with sharp red above her, she has a chance. She dives across the room and throws herself at Luz. They tumble to the ground as a stray spell cracks into the wall behind them.

“Luz what are you _doing_?!”

She’s wide-eyed and alert. Her face is set.

“I figured it out, Ams. The prophecy. The second half came when you were gone.”

Another blast of thundering magic. They duck and Amity rolls them out of the way, taking cover behind a stray plant pot. She hopes the fear doesn’t show on her face.

“And Eda and Lilith just let you tag along?! I can’t watch you risk your life for me! Figured out _what_ , Luz?”

Luz shakes her head. “I’m not risking my life for you, I’m playing my part. Don’t you get it? It was always meant to be like this. He’s human! He’s leeching magic because he’s _human_!”

“But how do you know? How can we stop him?”

“The glyphs”, she brandishes them in her hands, excitement and nervousness etched all over her face, “He can’t drain glyph magic.”

Hot wet tears roll down Amity’s cheeks. Because this wasn’t the plan. _How am I meant to protect you? “_ If you fight, we fight together. I won’t leave your side.”

Thunder. Flashes. Crumbling sounds. There is electricity in the air, and voices echo behind them, drawing closer: whispers that fill the room like ghosts. ‘She's here, she’s here, she’s here’.

Luz pulls them both to a standing position, and they end up almost face to face. Her hair is curled at the ends; her eyes are wild and burning. She takes her glyphs out of her pocket again, places them in her palms. Amity loves her. Amity loves her so completely.  
  
A new feeling, one of vengeance against _him,_ swims inside of her. 

“Do you promise that we do this together?”

Luz nods. “I do.”

And suddenly the voices around them, the sounds flicking across the room, ground to a halt. On the other side of the large throne room, the emperor has turned to face them. Using his staff, he has Eda and Lilith held still in the air. But his magic is wearing thin. The lines are shaking. They fizzle weakly at the edges.

“Luz the human”, he murmurs, “I had just about given up hope of this being any fun.”

“She’s MINE!” Amity is in front of Luz in seconds, shielding her.

The emperor chuckles, mirthless laughter ringing through the musty air.

“That is precisely the point. Soul mates cast in prophecy have the strongest magical bond of all.” He is gliding towards them, every step menacing, robe flowing behind him.

Luz grabs Amity’s hand and they squeeze together so tightly she winces. Her heart is beating so fast, too fast, and everything is too quiet. 

She flicks through her mental knowledge desperately. Soul mates were a part of lost magical lore. They referred to a rare bond bound by magical fates. They are said to be able to share magical power and understand each other on an extremely emotional level. There is no way…no WAY-

Luz squeaks. “ _Soul mates?!_ ”

Time stands still.

“Yes,” Belos affirms raising his staff, “your magic will serve me nicely. Now, should we do this the easy way or the hard way?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW major stress! A sticky situation! 
> 
> A few lil notes:  
> \- Soul mates in this context, at least to me, means that they were both written about in the prophecy as being a team and are a rare perfect match! None of that 'they complete each other!!' stuff bc they ARE literally perfect for each other but also they're both amazing people by themselves yknow? They make each other stronger and happier but they don't fix/complete each other. So that's what I mean by that, hope that makes sense! :)  
> \- Eda still doesn't know who cursed her...wink wink nudge nudge... ;-;  
> \- I have a TOH/cartoon stan twitter now! You can follow me @katthedoodle if you would like x  
> \- I listened to 'Runaway' by The National on repeat while writing this so um...if you wanna vibe with the story you can listen to the song while reading if that's your thing!  
> \- There is going to be one more main part to this story and then an epilogue!
> 
> I really REALLY hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next one is probs going to be a bit longer so will take about another week to write and then there'll be one last instalment left of this lil series which makes me pretty sad :( But, as always, thank you so much for all your adorable comments and love for this fic, it makes me SO HAPPY and I appreciate every single one so much!! 
> 
> Until next time, stay safe and well xx


	6. Part Five: I Should Live in Salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I should live in salt for leaving you behind" - The National
> 
> Amity Blight is no low-grade witch, but this is straight out of an Azura novel, and not in a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends!!
> 
> SO I moved back to uni and this chapter took me literally so long to write because I couldn't decide how to end it and have it lead into the epilogue. There are still a few things that need to be tied up but for now I am SUPER excited to share the final instalment of the main five chapters. I really hope you enjoy reading it! See you in the end notesss xx

PART FIVE: I should live in salt

“Should we do this the easy way or the hard way?”

The voices. As Amity stares up at the emperor, with his mask still hung over his face, and she hears them ringing in her ear like a faint pitter-patter. As his raises his staff, as Luz squeezes her hand, as her stomach folds in on itself, she hears them calling. A rush. A flood.

She can’t see; everything has gone dark.

Those voices, unknown to her, singing an unintelligible song.

She can’t see; everything has gone dark. Completely dark. There is a hauntingly strange sensation pulling at her insides like she is being drained from within. Like everything that has ever filled her up- senses, emotions, physical sensations-, is being taken from her. She realizes too late that Luz is still holding her hand, that they’re sharing the magic just like he wants them to, and she snatches it away. She wants everything to stop. _Stop._

Her eyes stay closed. The voices are growing louder, more insistent, but she needs to concentrate in order to make out the words. Her body is going limp, kneeling in on itself. Crouching. She can’t see. _Focus. Focus. Focus!_

They shimmer in her brain, words of faltering light: ‘Two illusions come from blood, a duel of fates then come the flood’.

_Fates? Blood? Duel?_

_Focus! Two illusions….meaning two people who aren’t everything they seem….blood….so they’re relatives…..Eda and Lilith. Eda and Lilith are sisters!_

Her mind start to slip. Inhala exhala, mija. Camila would say that.

_Inhala exhala._

Suddenly a movement next to her. She strains to see (her eyes won’t open) but she knows Luz is striking because she just _knows_. There’s a yell, that charismatic voice strung suddenly with pain, and then a follow up of humorless laughter. A screech (Eda?) of ‘Don’t touch that kid!’ and a few more claps of thunderous magic. Quickly, the thing that had been sapping at her strength gives way to her collapsing in a heap. Energy saps back to her in trickles.

When she opens her eyes, the emperor is bowed over his left knee, cradling a shard of broken mask in his hands. The gap in the hard yellow material reveals an eye which is…brown. Brown eyes. That taut material has cracked at the edges too, showcasing two human ears. Luz was right. But she squints because….his staff? _Humans can’t use staffs_?!

She quickly recomposes herself, no time to waste, and focuses on the situation. Luz is all action, striking with two different glyphs over and over again; she weaves icicles on the ground of the emperor’s feet and produces blinding orbs of light one after the other. She’s a blur of menace. She’s nimble. The emperor can’t quite shake her, twisting and turning but never quite grabbing her in time, the staff slipping from his hand as he gets pummeled. Amity struggles to her feet, desperate to help.

She raises her hand, focuses, but no magic comes. That familiar feeling of rising warmth, of slight burning on her fingertips, it doesn’t come. And it hits her, all of a sudden, that he’s taken something.

_Which means…._

He lets out an enraged shout, brushing off Luz’s disruptions as if she were a particularly annoying skin-eating fairy. The spells are deflected the instant he reclaims his staff. Luz is thrust into the air, red magical energy sizzling around her form and holding her prisoner.

“Let her GO!”

She launches herself at him, all sense of poise and planning thrown aside. Her body is a weapon if nothing else is.

For a moment she is lucky, striking him in the chest and grabbing at his staff, but he is quick. He grabs her by the hair, pulling her upwards as she writhes against his grasp and kicks uselessly at the air. She tries again, focusing on summoning her magic, but nothing in her responds to the call. That wonderful burnt smoke smell emanating from Belos’ staff makes her feel sick. She goes limp. She is empty.

Eda and Lilith are nowhere to be seen. _Where are they_? She screams, letting her fear rip through her, but the echoes bounce around the chamber and nothing comes to save her. He meets her eyes. They are narrowed with annoyance.

“As I said”, he murmurs, “I had wanted this to be fun. Well, this has been more fun than I had expected. Now, we end this. The hard way.”

But when he points his staff at them both, nothing happens.

He tries again, raining it with more vigour, more velocity, but as he brings it back down to meet their forms he scrunches his fists with frustration.

“What have you done?” He spits, glancing from Luz to Amity, searching their faces, pulling at their thoughts. “WHERE IS IT?!”

“You’ve taken it all!” Her voice trembles. Her tears spill down her face. She’s shaking but a small feeling of triumph finds itself nestled into her throat. “There is NOTHING left!”

The barrier loosens, just momentarily, with perplexion. “But the prophecy, the fates, they said the power was _limitless_.” He meets Luz’s eyes. “You are broken. And if you’re broken…well” he turns around, letting them both drop to the ground, “you are of no use to me.”

He glides across the mauve carpet, heading for the two exhausted figures of Eda and Lilith. Amity finally sees them, sprawled in the darkest corner of the throne room. With each step he takes, he threatens Luz less and less. Amity glances at her, panting with relief, and she scoops Luz into her arms hugging her fiercely.

But time doesn’t slow down for them like she wishes it would. Eda and Lilith rise as one. Both have their staffs ready. Both look strained.

“You wanted the power, you got the power. So why don’t you back down before we beat you anyway, huh?” Eda.

“I too, would like to see you take both of us.” Lilith.

The back of his robed form shudders. He is sucking something out of the air. _But how is he doing this? He’s human!_ “Ah, Lilith. You forget so easily that all of this began because of you.”

Amity blinks. Luz blinks. Eda blinks once. Twice. “Huh?” She bemusedly turns to her sister, who looks furious.

“I was YOUNG! I was NAÏVE!”

“And that”, he mutters, “is why you cursed your sister. Your own flesh and blood.”

_…..No._

“I….look I-“ She turns to Eda, but the owl lady’s face is stone. “Edalyn it’s not what you think-“

“Save your excuses for later. This duel starts now.” Eda is broiling with thunder.

Amity and Luz sit collapsed as it begins: flashes of magic echoing like thunder through the walls and the prophecy, those last two lines, unfold before their eyes.

Amity and Luz hold each other as the world comes crashing down.

_A duel of fates._

But she can’t leave this to them. They won’t win. Eda’s gem is growing darker and darker (that can’t be good) and Lilith is already showing signs of being outmatched (which isn’t promising). And in that moment as if they are both silently agreeing, Luz and Amity meet eyes once more. Luz holds them out, the spare glyphs, and points to the one she had already placed on the wall. Amity knows exactly what she means.

Together, they rise. As Luz lets her hand slide out of grasp, she feels her body flow into motion. She holds the glyphs in her right hand, making her way across the room, following Belos’ every move. Calculated. Controlled. _Incredibly brave._

While Luz works, Amity slinks back to the huge yellow wall and plasters the fire glyphs over the target space.

A perfect trap.

Luz strikes when his back is turned, claiming that sizzling red staff for herself and suddenly the emperor’s limbs begin to flail. He stumbles backwards, Eda and Lilith propelling him to where the glyph lies waiting on the wall. Luz spins the staff around in her hands and she meets Amity’s eyes.

The moment he finally falls, struck by a particular powerful blow from Eda, into the wall of glyphs, several things happen at once.

The wall collapses in on itself, an explosion of fire engulfing him in flames. Eda falls to her knees and lets out an earth-shattering howl. Lilith leaps onto her sister and tries to stop her from growing feathers.

Luz is across the room in seconds, grabbing at Amity and pulling her from harms way. She cradles her, eyes closed, praying to the fates. The moment the explosion makes way for dust and debris, Amity hears the voices again and is taken under.

-

_Share the magic. Ebb and flow._

Voices. Everything is bright white.

She smells a familiar burning smell; feels her nerves tingling. In this dream space, this subconscious drift, she feels them come to a head as she spots her: Luz.

They walk towards each other as if in a trance, as if they were about to dance again like that moment in the church all those weeks ago, and they meet in the middle.

 _Share the magic_ Gentle insistence _. Ebb and flow._

Their eyes have locked. The itch scratches. The smell of burning wafts through their noses and their eyes are locked. Fire on fire. Luz is there, their hands clasped, itch scratching, eyes locked.

Amity understands.

_Fire on fire._

_I was right._

-

She feels her face scrunch inwards when she is next bought back to consciousness. Slowly, she squints her eyes open just a little and registers the change in scenery. It smells of burning. She is being cradled in Luz’s arms. They are outside in what appears to be a forest she has never stepped foot in before.

“Ams? Amity? Cariño, wake up…”

The sluggishness translates to the slow smile on her cheeks, the fluttering of her eyelashes in sleepiness. “Did you just call me sweetheart?”

Luz frowns, cheeks flushing pink. “You can swoon over my pet names for you later. Right now, I need you to focus. Are you awake?”

She considers it: is she awake? The world feels dimmed somehow, like she’s underwater, but she can see from her squinted eyesight that Eda and Lilith have vanished. She’s being sat up by Luz’s arms. She’s resting in them, All things considered, she is awake. So she nods.

“Good, because these four say they know you and want to help.”

Swiveling her head too quickly (everything spins) her eyes land on Emira, Edric, Willow and Gus.

“Why are you all staring? I’m not a circus!”

The twins snort.

“We knew something was off when mum and dad were acting shady.” Em.

“Then we saw the breaking news on the crystal balls that a bunch of kids had been arrested, but when we went to the cells you weren’t there!” Ed.

“It’s just crazy to me that you thought to check in the emperor’s castle at all.” Gus.

The twins grin at him, patting him on the head. “What can we say, we’re smart.”

Turning their attention back to Amity and Luz, Ed bends down so he can face both of them head on. “Emira and I found you in the emperor’s throne room passed out, so we scooped you both up and carried you here.”

Luz nods, impressed. “So you are…?”

Emira bends down beside Ed, smirking. “We’re Amity’s siblings. I’m Emira Blight, this”, she pokes Ed’s cheek, “is Edric Blight.”

Luz shakes both of their hands. Amity notes, eyes narrowing with interest, that there is a faint red flush in her cheeks. _Interesting._ “Well I’m glad both of you got there when you did. We both totally passed out!”

The twins nod, but Gus and Willow have also sat before Luz and Amity and are now begging to ask their own questions.

“So what _happened_?” Gus.

“Are you both okay?” Willow.

Amity uses her voice, even though it comes out a little shaky and weak. “The emperor tried to drain our magic. Luz and I we’re…soul mates.”

Everyone blinks, shocked.

Luz continues into the silence. “He tried to drain our magic and it was SUPER scary but then Eda and Lilith were fighting him off and THEN we used my method of magic- glyphs, by the way- to guide him into a trap! He might be sort of…dead now….” She finishes the story with awkward jazz hands. “I didn’t expect the blast to _kill_ him exactly, but”, she turns to Amity, “your siblings told me that his death has been reported. There’s a struggle for power now as we speak. No one knows what’s gonna happen.”

The news doesn’t really faze her, for some reason, because Amity is too busy trying to remember that _dream_. The white lights and those voices that had told her the secret. “I lost my magic, Luz”

A collective silence. Luz’s jaw drops. “What?”

“He took it. During the fight, I tried to use magic and there wasn’t anything there anymore.”

“Mittens, are you sure?” Ed and Em are immediately by her side, gently putting their hands on either of her shoulders. The affection isn’t new, but it was so rare before that if feels foreign. _But really…nice._

“I think I know how to fix it, though?”

Luz raises her eyebrows. “I think I know too.”

They stare at each other for a moment, breaths baited. There are no words swapped between them, but Amity knows Luz dreamed it too. Heard them too. And before either of them back down they rest their foreheads together, connect their palms. _Inhala, exhala._

She feels the motion whirring inside her gut, a pulsing of energy. That scratching, that itch in her belly, spreads once again into a full forest fire. A rebirth is happening in her gut, a blaze of fire rising within her. They breathe, the ebb and flow between them forming a small ball of light just above them. For one blissful moment they are nothing but an illumination. A perfect pair.

When the energy sinks back down, they release their hands and simply stare at each other. Amity counts the freckles on Luz’s left cheek, notices her eyelashes have grown longer since they first met. She’s prettier than anything she’s ever seen before. She’s prettier than anything else she’ll ever see.

“What is the titan just happened?” Gus has thrown his hands into the air, the questions driving him insane. Amity can’t help but grin.

“I can’t really explain. We just sort of…shared our energy? Or our magic?”

“….what?!”

She smiles, glancing at her, at Luz, before looking down at her palms. She concentrates, fixing in, and sees the familiar light spell rise from those beautiful groves of her skin. It floats upwards into the night and glows with a newfound intensity.

Amity knows this is the time to stand up, so she struggles for a bit and eventually manages to regain control of her legs, rising up to a feeble standing position.

“Are you okay, Ams?” Those gentle eyes swim with concern, and affection floods her being.

“I’m fine. I think…I think my magic is fine. I’ll be okay.” They share a gentle smile, fingers intertwined, and she swears their hearts are beating at the same time as the group around them also rises. A circle of their friends. A reflection of their hearts.

-

It takes a while to decide where they’re going to go. The twins suggest home, but the very thought of even looking at her parents makes Amity’s blood boil, so the option is ruled out immediately. Willow suggests her place, but then realizes her father’s might not be expecting such wrecked company. Gus comes to the same conclusion and everyone falls into silence until Luz chews on her lip, lifting her right hand in a questioning motion (her left still in Amity’s).

“Why don’t we just go back to the owl house?”

Amity grins. “That reminds me, how did you even _get_ here? Was it through Eda’s portal?”

She nods, hair swaying in the wind. “Yup. The last part of the prophecy clue arrived just a few hours after you’d left and I knew something was wrong. Next thing I know Eda shows up again, saying something about her sister having ‘figured it out’ and telling me that I should go with her”. She shrugs, “So I went.”

Amity places her hand on Luz’s cheek, the softness a kind familiarity. “Anyone ever told you how brave you are?”

“That’s my girlfriend’s job”.

“Your girlfriend is lucky.”

“Um…first of all”, Emira grimaces, “mittens you are a sap. And…human, what’s your name again?”

“Luz!”

She nods grinning. “Luz, you are _also_ a sap.”

Edric chimes in. “Second of all, when did this _happen_?”

Amity feels her face taking the usual form of fire red. Her cheeks are so hot. _Play it cool!_ “Well you know how I told you about Luz? I just sort of…left out the fact that we’re sort of…dating…”

The twins look extremely smug. Willow is eyeing Luz, probably trying to figure out what about her made Amity swoon, Gus has his hands on his hip, a questioning look still on his face, ever the journalist. “So you get dumped in the human realm and just happen to find your _literal_ soul mate?!”

Luz and Amity nod, totally in rhythm. And then they glance at each other and burst out giggling, doubling over. Soon the whole group has followed suit, bubbly laughter releasing into the warm evening air and the stress and tension rolling off of each of them in wonderful waves. By the time they have calmed down and started their long walk to the owl house, Amity feels peaceful.

-

Eda and Lilith look different. Both of them stand outside the owl house, as if they had been expecting guests, and both now have one grey eye. Lilith even has a grey streak in her otherwise nightshade hair.

Luz is the first to break the silence as the two groups face each other. “What happened?”

Eda snorts. “When your sister curses you, the only way she can redeem herself is if she shares the curse.” She turns her head, grey hair glinting brilliantly in the now moonlit night. “Lilith has made a lot of mistakes but…she’s starting to make amends.”

The taller Clawthorne sister smiles meekly, her face drawn into a neat optimistic smile. “I hope so.”

Turning her attention back to the procession before her, Eda points to Luz. “You’re the one everyone should really be thanking here kiddo. You’re gutsy.”

Amity grins. “She’s braver than all of us!”

“Mittens is smittens”. Ed.

“That doesn’t quite work.” Em.

“Well she’s right. Luz, you’re interesting.”

Luz is running a hand through her hair, that adorable nervous habit that Amity is incredibly fond of. “I’m glad you think so. Um, so, what now?”

Eda shrugs. “Now you go back home and make sure your mother doesn’t find a way here so she can strangle me for your abduction.”

A chorus of laughter rumbles through their ranks but Amity’s heart is sinking because… _ah._

She’d forgotten about this. But…

“Eda?”

The owl lady blinks. “Yeah?”

“Since we…sort of…you know, helped you out, can I ask you a favour in return?”

Suspicion crosses her face, nose scrunching. “Depends. I love a good deal but you won’t scam a scammer. What’s your bargain?”

“Well,” she runs a hand through her hair, “if, say, I wanted to visit Luz on the weekends or Luz wanted to visit me, could you let us use the portal to do that?”

Luz is wide-eyed and she claps her hands together hopefully. “Oh my gosh Eda please please please! Please?”

She considers for a moment, skeptical. “And you wouldn’t sell me out, tell anyone else about the portal?”

They both shake their heads.

“Hmm…well, I want to say yes, but how will either of you let me know when you wanna use this thing? And what if I’m not around?”

“We could set up a schedule? Or just plan something like every weekend?”

For a moment, Amity is sure that she’ll say no but, to her pleasant surprise, Eda meets Luz’s eyes and they share a fond look. _When did that happen?_ “As I said, for a human you’re pretty brave Luz. You remind me of myself when I was younger”. Lilith snorts. “So, okay, it’s a deal.”

Amity yelps with joy as she’s picked up by Luz and spun around in happy little circles. She doesn’t care that everyone is watching, doesn’t care that they’re probably thinking she’s softer now, more vulnerable. When she opens her eyes, meets those beautiful brown irises, she knows that everything good in the world is in her arms. She is hers completely.

As they all venture into the owl house to spend the night, figure out what to do next and to recover, Luz and Amity walk arm in arm and she feels the feeling she hadn’t been able to articulate rest in her bones. They ebb and flow. They push and pull. Somehow, in some way, they are completely connected.

She still has questions. There are still so many questions. But…

 _This is what it’s like_ she thinks _to really have a real life soul mate._

_I like it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS!! 
> 
> I'm sure you still have some questions but don't worry, the epilogue is coming soon! Hopefully by next week but be patient with me as I am real busy at the moment.
> 
> My TOH/twitter is: @katthedoodle if you would like to follow me :)
> 
> ALSO the extra end notes are from the first chapter and I can’t get rid of them even though I’ve deleted them off of that one...this isn’t the prologue don’t worry!! This is part 5 with just the epilogue left x 
> 
> Until next time, stay safe and have a lovely lovely day/night. LOVE YALL AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT/LOVE FOR THIS STORY XXX


	7. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath, the reprecussions and the solutions.
> 
> Amity Blight is no low-grade witch, but this is straight out of an Azura novel, and kind of in the best way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo this took me a while? SORRY!!
> 
> I am very bad at endings and with uni starting back up I had no time to write anything good so had to take it super slow with this one! I'm still not 100% sure I love it but I really hope you all do. 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me throughout this little series, writing it has genuinely made me so happy and the fact that it's made some of you happy too?? Wild, I'm so grateful.
> 
> See ya in the end notes. Enjoy the read x

EPILOGUE

**TWO YEARS LATER**

WINTER / LOVE

“You can’t cheat!”

“Using magic isn’t _cheating._ Especially our magic.”

Luz looks up at her, doe-eyed and dangerous. _She knows exactly what she’s doing._ “Ams, it is cheating if you use magic at Winter Wonderland, the already most magical place on earth.”

Amity scrunches her nose. “The most magical place on the entire earth is Miami’s winter wonderland festival?”

“Yep!”

Amity finds herself giving in without even thinking about it, grinning. _What have I become?_ “Fine, but if I break my leg you’re paying for hospital fees and buying me a candy cane.”

Matching Amity’s grin with her own, Luz slips away from her, gliding onto the ice-rink backwards and pirouetting dramatically. There is a gasp in the crowds around her, a few skaters on the ice turning to admire her surprising grace. Amity chews her lip, feeling nervous twinges flood her system. She knows that it’s her first time doing this, so there’s really no pressure, but the less dignified part of her wants to impress Luz so badly it’s embarrassing. Even though they’ve been dating for two years, she still finds herself wanting to make Luz fall deeper and deeper in love with her.

_Gross._

When Luz had suggested a ‘winter wonderland weekend’ she imagined sipping hot chocolate and watching an Azura film. But this? Crowds of humans and beautiful warm lights shining everywhere in the evening light? It’s mesmerizing in a way she hasn’t experienced before, and when she glances back at Luz, who is now circuiting the small ice-rink and waving at passers-by, she feels the familiar itch in her belly. Warmth.

She slides onto the ice and finds that even without holding her balance with magic, the skating comes naturally to her. _Maybe I will impress her after all._

She gingerly glides over to Luz. Grabs her by the arms. Spins her around on the ice until they’re both giggling uncontrollably, using each other for balance, and gently drifting through the haze of people around them. The momentum makes her chest swell a little, and Luz’s eyes shine with child-like wonder. Everything about this moment feels like magic, even though there is none to be seen. Little girls and boys dressed in big coats and scarves with ear muffs. Adults in groups of friends enjoying feeling young again. Couples spinning in tandem. Luz is looking up at her again, eyes soft and warm, a small smile on her perfect face.

Amity kisses her because she wants to, but also because she can’t really help it.

They sway gently through the white haze for a while, arms around each other and noses touching. Luz tastes like cinnamon. Luz smells like home.

When she pulls away, Luz looks extremely pleased with herself. Amity feels the hands on her face before she really registers them and grins back, head reeling. Their eyes meet and that familiar wild-fire spreads through her, reaching the tips of her boot-clad toes.

“You know that I love you, right?” Luz blinks up at her, coy.

Her face burns. It burns every time. “Yes. Yes I do.”

Luz frowns, pouting like a small child and tucking a stray strand of Amity’s hair behind her ear. “Say it back!”

She rolls her eyes and suddenly, without warning, spins Luz around so the shorter girl falls right into her arms, head staring up from within the sound grasp.

“I love you too. More than anyone.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Amity Blight, the world’s biggest sap.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Luz Noceda, the world’s biggest idiot.”

They share smiles.

Amity decides in those moments where the fairy lights illuminate the golden brown curls of Luz’s hair that she _loves_ Winter Wonderland.

-

SPRING / COMFORT

Eda is still ‘foxy for her age’ as Luz puts it, even after the whole curse ordeal.

Although Lilith had shared the brunt of the magic with her sister in the aftermath of Belos’ abrupt fall from the throne, Eda’s hair remains silver-grey and her once matching golden irises now take on a heterochromatic form: one gold and one the same colour as her hair. The prophecy had been true after all. The two sisters, the two ‘illusions’ had bought the duel of fates to life and caused the ‘flood’ (which Amity could only assume was his fall from power).

Amity sits on the sofa of Eda’s owl house with pride as the older lady potters around, drinking tea and petting King absent mindedly, who has nestled his head into the crook of her outstretched arm. _Cute._

She glances up from the steam rising out of her cup and makes eye contact with her, Eda, as she stirs something on the stove. It smells vaguely of vegetables and burning, but she somehow manages to make everything taste nice. She’s wearing her signature red dress and her silver hair still manages to shine bright even in the dimly lit room. _She’s a true wonder._

“I’m surprised you came back so soon kid, not even my sister stops by as often as you.”

She looks away, feeling a certain shyness creep through her. “I…well…I like it here.”

Eda hums with content and goes back to stirring, leaving Amity to fiddle with her cup and chew the inside of her lip.

“Hey! Less brooding, more scratching!”

She snorts with laughter, feeling the worry leave her chest. “Sorry King!”

She waits for around twenty minutes, sipping her tea and stroking King until Eda finally joins her on the sofa, placing two bowls on the small table in front of them filled with steaming hot soup. “Okay, so what did you want advice on today?”

She clears her throat. “I want to know what you think I should do about…my parents.”

Eda frowns. “Well they’re not taking Belos’ fallen throne any time soon, so what’s the worry? The new government system is pretty popular and witches like their magical freedom too much to give it up for a pair of elitist boneheads.”

“They could still break out of prison! Someone could be conspiring with them! They want the old ways back, the covens back, I know they do.”

Eda raises an eyebrow. “But the real reason you’re worried is…?”

She sighs, feeling her body slump a little. _Be brave._ “They hate me, Eda. I’m scared they’re going to punish me somehow and it makes me feel…anxious.” She pauses momentarily, feeling the flush grace her cheeks. “When I’m with Luz in the human realm I feel really safe but here I just… I have Ed and Em but I just feel lonely, you know?”

A gentle hand is placed on her shoulder, its warmth making Amity already feel better. It surprises her, actually, that Eda knows how to comfort her, but then again she has underestimated Eda many times before everything happened. She regrets all of those stupid pre-assumptions that her parents drilled into her as a kid. She wonders what she would have believed if this all hadn’t happened, if she’d grown up in her family mansion as planned. The thought makes her insides shudder.

“Look kid”, the owl lady smiles gently, “I know Luz is your soul-mate, but you can’t live a life here feeling like she is the only good thing. Your parents, well, I hate to say it but they had it coming. But you made a choice, the right choice, and it landed you here. And the owl house is always here for you if you feel unsafe, okay?”

She blinks once. Twice. “Okay.” And then she can’t help herself. “When did you become so maternal?”

Eda rolls her eyes, retracting her hand and folding her arms together, harrumphing. “I’m not maternal! That human girl…with her parallel arm thing…she just made me realize feeling things is okay, you know? She’s really taught us all more than we’ve taught her.”

Amity grins. “She really has.”

Eda stands, brushing off the dust and heading to the owl door. “Besides, it’s not all doom and gloom here. Magic is yours for the taking now. Anything you want to study, any spell you want to learn, you can do it.” She stares out the window wistfully. “It’s what I always dreamed of, and finally, here we are.”

-

“AMS!!”

She’s hugged fiercely as she steps through the door into Luz and Camila’s house, breath squeezed out of her entirely.

“Luz I can’t…breath-“

“Oh right right, I’m sorry!” She giggles, a little embarrassed, and releases Amity’s body slightly. But still keeps her arms wrapped loosely around her. “I just missed you.”

Amity tucks a stray strand of hair behind Luz’s ear, making the other girl blush. “It’s been four days.”

“It felt like longer.”

Their eyes meet and Amity feels the familiar thrum in her veins strike up her pulse, making her head spin slightly. “Yeah”, she murmurs, closing the gap, “it did.”

Their lips meet and it feels just like the first time (every time they kiss it feels just like the first time). Luz is soft, always. Luz is slightly shorter than her, always. They meet perfectly, noses gently touching as Amity finds her hands in Luz’s hair, threading the dark brown strands through her fingers and pulling in closer, wanting to be closer. Luz's hands are on Amity’s arms, her back and in her hair, gently kneading.

It’s when they break apart, both panting slightly, that Amity notices Camila in the kitchen doorway, a smug grin on her face. _I did NOT sign up for this oh my gr-_

“Buenos dias, Amity. Glad to see you again!”

Luz releases Amity from her grip, finally, and turns to face her mum. “Can Amity stay for dinner?”

Camila bats a hand at the air in front of her, rolling her eyes. “As I’ve said before mija, and will continue to say, Amity is family and family can always stay for dinner.”

Luz grins, whipping her head back around to meet eyes again. “It’s empanada night. You’re staying, right?”

Amity smiles. “Obviously.”

Luz whoops, throwing her hands up in the air in excitement, smile absolutely contagious. Amity is glad she can’t see her own reflection right now, because if she could the sappy smile she is almost definitely wearing it would make her hurl. Luz bolts up the stairs to get something, leaving her alone in the kitchen with Camila, who ambles over to the sofa and sits down. Amity follows, sitting on the other side, but doesn’t feel any awkwardness as Camila reaches over and ruffles her hair gently, eyes rife with affection.

“How are you, cariño?”

“Good.” She chews her lip, not knowing how to explain everything. Camila knows now, they sat down and told her the day after everything happened and Luz had to come back home after leaving without warning. Camila had been surprisingly quick to understand (although not so quick to stop scolding her daughter) and had offered Amity her hospitality for whenever the girl felt she needed it. But explaining her parental situation…it wasn’t that easy.

She risks a peek at Camila, who is clearly not convinced, eyebrows raised. “You can’t lie to me Amity, I know you too well. What’s wrong?”

She sighs. _Give in._ “My parents hate me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It….it really is. They sided with Belos. They didn’t want me to meddle. They won’t answer my letters....” she can’t finish the sentence, her eyes already welling up with tears. She tries not to let them spill, wills herself to keep calm, but when Camila places a gentle arm around her shoulder she can’t help herself. But as she cries softly, Camila holds her close, rubs her back, mumbles ‘ssssh it’s okay’ into her ear.

Luz returns. Or at least, she feels Luz return, because suddenly there are two bodies hugging her from either side and both Noceda’s are warming her soul. She knows the solution is not that simple, that somehow she’s going to have to accept herself as a hated child, but right here and now she at least feels part of a found family. Not one of blood, but one formed with a flood of love that all started with…

Luz.

She wipes her eyes, sniffling embarrassedly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly.” Camila.

“You’re our family. We love you.” Luz.

Slowly, she turns her head and meets her eyes, feeling the familiar itch in her stomach despite everything. “I know. But what if things had been different?”

Camila smiles absent-mindedly as she continues to stroke Amity’s back. “I often wonder that myself. But things will always be as they are. You must try to make peace with that.”

“They’re still being held in jail. Should I go and visit them? It’s been so long and I feel so guilty…”

“Only if you want to, mija. Forgiveness takes time.”

Luz strokes her right cheek gently. “You know, maybe you should speak to Lilith, she’s governess now, right? I’m sure she’d help you out, maybe convince your parents to at least send you a letter back?”

Amity blinks. Luz is right (Luz is always right) but now that she mulls it over in her head, perhaps it’s not the response that she wants. What Amity really wants, more than anything, is just…parents that love her. Camila loves her. Eda is getting there. Maybe…

“Maybe it isn’t so bad”, she murmurs quietly into the silent humming of the Noceda living room, “maybe it’ll just take getting used to.”

The kettle beeps, signaling the soon-to-be smell of coffee. Amity feels her spirits rise a little as she realizes that, yes, she can make things work. She has Edric and Emira in her new little house back on the Boiling Isles. They are her family, the family she chooses to keep.

“Ams?”

“Hm?”

Luz pokes her forehead, leans over her teasingly. “Do you want coffee?”

Amity take the outstretched hand, finds herself being pulled upwards. She smiles. “I always want coffee.”

_If anyone can make this work, it’s me._

-

“So what have you been up to in the past few days?”

They’re lying on Luz’s bed, sides pressed together and hands intertwined. It’s later in the evening, the empanadas have been made and subsequently devoured, and Camila has gone to bed leaving them both alone for the evening. The room is dark apart from a few jasmine scented candles, which flicker gently with every gust of wind let in by the window, which is slightly ajar.

Amity turns her head to face Luz. “Not much. I visited Eda and just hung out with Ed and Em a lot at home. They wanted to know how you were, by the way.”

Luz props herself up on one elbow so she’s hanging above Amity. “How’s your guys’ little house then? I’m assuming Eda found it totally legally..?”

Amity snorts, face contorting. “She actually _did_! She asked Lilith if she knew of any abandoned properties on the Boiling isles and we just fixed the nicest one up! Ed is really good at fixing stuff and Em has a good eye for decoration so it really wasn’t that hard!”

Luz giggles. “Okay okay! I’m glad,” she fiddles with Amity’s face, tracing lines on her cheeks, “I’m glad that you get to live with them. At least you still have them as your blood family.”

She nods absent-mindedly, brain focused on the way Luz’s fingers feel on her skin. “Yeah…”

“It’s crazy how it all happened”, she continues distantly, “Belos’ death, the government system forming, the release of wild magic….and the fact that it’s been two years?”

Amity hums in agreement, not needing to say anything.

Luz continues to trace over her face, fingertips gracing her eyelashes, her nose, the corners of her mouth. “I wonder what will happen when we’re older…maybe I could come live on the Isles with you for a bit? Or you could come here once you’ve finished school at Hexside?”

“I’d like that. You could learn some more magic, meet some more witches?”

“Yeah!”

“I could teach you how to fly a broom! We could have family bonding nights with Ed and Em…and invite Camila and Eda!”

Luz snorts. “You are _so_ going soft on me, Blight.”

“Am _not!”_

Luz laughs some more, lowering herself so she’s hovering just above Amity’s lips tentatively. “You are, but I like it.”

A gentle kiss. A kiss that leads to another, and another, and another. Hands in her hair, noses touching and breaths mingling in the pale candlelight. The epiphany of everything, here in her arms.

And when they kiss she feels it, the connection, the energy flow between them. The strongest feeling she has ever felt pulling at her insides and taking her thoughts with it. They form a perfect ebb and flow, a beautiful rhythm. Luz stops kissing her as they both glance up and grin at the orb of light which hangs above their heads. _We formed that_ Amity thinks _out of nothing. Just like the fates formed us out of nothing._

_How can everything have come from nothing?_

“You really are my soul mate, Ams.”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever worry about the future? About fate?”

Amity shakes her head, bites her lip. “Yes to the future, no to the fate thing. Do you?”

Luz sighs, flops back down onto the bed and retangles their hands. The orb illuminates the sight curl of her hair which is longer now, the two front strands splayed across her shoulders. “Sometimes.”

The candlelight casts shadows on her face. They dance in the glow. “Why?”

“I sometimes wonder if you’ll…I don’t know…get bored of me.”

Amity sits up. “Why would I ever get bored of _you_? Luz, you’re the least boring person I’ve ever met, and I’ve lived on the Boiling Isles for almost all my life!”

Luz casts her gaze aside, embarrassed. “But you’re Amity Blight! I’m just Luz.”

“Yes, you’re just Luz. You’re Luz who comforted me when no one else could. You’re Luz who helped me solve an impossible puzzle. You’re Luz who snorts when she laughs, who cooks the best empanadas, who is earth-shatteringly beautiful it makes it hard to look at you sometimes. You’re the bravest person I know. The _best_ person I know.” She leans over her, trying her best to make her understand. “I’m not going to get bored of you. I promise.”

“I just think-“

A finger over her lips. “Then don’t think. Just trust me when I say I love you more than anyone. We’re literally soul mates. I need you just as much as you need me.”

Bashfully, Luz meets her gaze once again. The familiar feeling of fire, intensity, charges the air. It makes Amity’s skin erupt with goose bumps. _Fire on fire._

“Amity?”

“Yeah?”

“Come to my school prom with me in summer?”

She can’t help it. She giggles in spite of the seriousness of the moment. “I would be offended if you asked anyone else!”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You’re the idio-“

But she is being pulled back down, snuggled in to. Luz hugs her like it’s the last time she’ll ever get to every single time.

-

SUMMER / JOY

Luz’s room hasn’t changed much in the past two years. Posters still drape across every wall, clutter roams its way across the dark brown carpet and the fairy lights still twinkle pleasantly on the windowsill, shining little speckles of yellowy-gold onto her reflection in Luz’s full-length mirror. It feels extremely familiar, like déjà vu, but so much _has_ changed.

She grabs the hair comb from Luz’s desk, untangles the knots from her hair. Her hair much longer now, her brown roots more prominent and the green a slightly lighter shade: minty. That _is_ something that has changed and it makes her insides fizzle gently with pleasure. She combs through it carefully, gracefully. _When two people share the same hairbrush_ she remembers Camila telling her _their lives will be entangled forever, just like the hairs on the bristles._

She hopes, as she draws it back and spots the strands, light green on dark brown, that Camila is right. There are many things she treasures, but Luz? Luz isn’t just treasure. Amity has never loved anyone quite as much.

The reflection stares back at her: she’s wearing the same black dress she wore to that fateful party in the church two years ago. The flowers are still startlingly pale against the velvety black material, and the white collar still cups her neck perfectly. The dress is slightly shorter on her now, just above her knees, but it still fits almost perfectly. She reaches into the pocket, pulls out the letter, and reads it through for the one-thousandth time.

_Ams,_

_I miss you already._

_I mean, technically, while I’m writing this you’re still here. You’re sleeping on the sofa (you always fall asleep on the sofa!) so I’m writing this quickly before you wake up. Um…anyway, I just wanted to say thank you, I guess. I’m not going to be too dramatic and say my life was nothing before I met you because that’s not true. My life was fine._

_What I’m trying to say is you didn’t make my life ‘complete’ or anything cheesy like that. You just…made me happy. Made me feel wanted. I was so excited when you opened up to me. I was so happy when we danced (I had butterflies in my stomach). I was so nervous when we kissed for the first time because I wanted it to be good…and it was!_

_It’s really hard to describe what I mean but what I’m trying to say is that you made everything feel fuller when nothing before had felt quite full. I hope that makes sense? It makes sense to me._

_I love you. Whatever version of ‘love’ I can feel at fourteen anyway. I know that’s how I feel about you._

_I hope you do find your way back to me. Somehow._

_Love,_

_Luz_

_P.S I figured it out. You’re the Hecate to my Acura. That’s us!_

She glances up from her note, spotting the one she wrote for Luz stuck neatly onto the side of her mirror. She reads it, feeling slightly coy at how vulnerable it is, but also proud of how much it meant to Luz, how happy it made her.

_Dear Luz,_

_I wasn’t lying when I made that promise. I am coming back for you._

_I don’t really know how to say it in a way that will make you understand, because saying that I love you feels too easy and simple. It’s too obvious._

_You’ve changed me and I am so grateful. More grateful than I’ve ever been about anything. Saying I love you feels too easy. But I do. I obviously love you._

_I’m coming back for you, but for now I guess I just wanted to write you this note to say this: thank you._

_Love,_

_Amity_

_P.S You’re the Azura to my Hecate._

“Amity? Cariño are you coming?”

The reflection smiles, cheeks tingeing red despite it all being so familiar. She holds the letter against her heart. Takes a deep breath in. A joyfulness is swarming the room, emboldened by the blazing summer light.

“I’m coming!”

-

AUTUMN / CHANGE

The Boiling Isles is at its best in the autumnal months. The deep shades of red in the sky, the slight chill in the air, the beautiful haze that covers the dusk. Everything about it is chilling in a warming way. Amity finds, as she walks through the forest, that the scrunching of leaves under her black boots gives her an incredible feeling of child-like joy. And then she giggles to herself, shaking her head. _When did I become such a kid?_

Her knapsack sways gently in the breeze on her back and strands of her now brown her float in front of her eyes daintily. She smiles, and then her ribs are nudged, causing her to flinch.

“What was _that_ for Em?!”

Emira snorts. “You don’t pay enough attention. Soon you won’t be able to tell our illusions from our real bodies.”

Amity humps. Sticks her nose in the air. “Your illusions can’t be as annoying as you.”

Edric throws a leaf at her but it glides through the air only to fall a few meters short from her face, which makes all three of them snort with laughter. He stretches his arms over his head lazily. “I don’t understand why we couldn’t have done this in the human realm at her house.”

“Because that’s no _fun_ Ed.”

“I think getting to throw leaves at humans and watch _them_ give me weird looks is pretty fun.”

Emira yanks on his hair gently. “That’s because you’re a weirdo.”

“There’s two weirdoes here, we’re twins.”

“Oh we’ll see about tha-“

“Guys!” Amity waves her hands in both of their faces. “We don’t have time for this! We’re almost there.”

The owl house is indeed now in distant few, the last scattering of deep green trees giving way to a glorious sunset sky with the house planted right in the very center.

Amity is running before she knows it. Ed and Em follow in hot pursuit.

-

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Luz. Happy birthday to you!”

Camila raises her hands, clapping with joy. “And now en español!”

“Cumpleaños feliz, cumpleaños feliz, te deseamos Luz. Cumpleaños feliz!”

As Luz blows out her candles, Amity wraps her arms around her from behind, snuffling her hair in an affectionate gesture that makes both Em and Eda audibly gag. Not that she cares that much, although maybe the affectionate stuff still makes her feel a little embarrassed. Just a little.

They end up talking for hours, Eda and Camila chatting in the corner and the Blight’s encircled around Luz, who seems to have taken a particular fondness for Emira. Amity doesn’t know why she finds it so funny when her girlfriend gets flustered, but watching Em tease Luz and Luz flushing deep red is, for some reason, absolutely hilarious. Ed seems to agree, because every so often throughout the conversation their eyes meet and they burst into fits of laughter.

“And then I was running away from it, because it was _huge_ you know? I’ve never seen a monster that big before and suddenly he was all up in my face!”

Luz is nodding along, attention fixed. “And then what?”

Em smirks. “I tricked him with an illusion of course. Made him think I was running a different way altogether and threw him off my scent!”

Ed sniffs. “She’s forgetting to mention that I helped her with that illusion.”

Em elbows him in the side but Ed is already grinning smugly. Luz giggles a little, the slight red tinge very visible (and very funny). Amity leans into her and whispers gently in her ear “try-hard.”

Luz blinks, turning to fully face her whilst Ed and Em still bicker in the background. Her eyebrows are raised comically. “You’re saying I’m a simp for making friends with your siblings?”

“Precisely.”

“Well that’s just rude.”

Amity grins, leaning closer. “Guess it is a bit, but it’s the truth, Noceda.”

“And you’d out me like this when I’m trying to impress my girlfriend on my own birthday?”

They’re inches away from each other, so close that she can feel Luz’s breath on her face. But suddenly Ed is in-between them interrupting with news that the cake has been cut. Still smirking, Luz wraps her arm around Amity and leads them both over to the table in the middle of the owl house where the said cake sits, waiting to be eaten.

-

As the sun sets, Amity ends up by the window of the owl house, watching it all take place. Luz has drifted over to Eda and Camila, but the twins are still with her.

Ed breaks the silence. “What are you thinking about, mittens?”

Amity shrugs. “Just…stuff.”

Emira pokes her cheek gently. “It’s almost three years today since it all happened. Is that what you’re thinking about?”

“Maybe.”

She sighs, small knowing smile gracing her lips. “You’re such a brooder Amity. But” she gently pats the top of Amity’s head, “me and Ed are here for you.”

Ed hums. “Mum and dad did us all dirty, but you’re stuck with us forever. We’re here for you, okay?”

Amity nods in acknowledgment. “I’m here for both of you, too.”

The twins snort. Em folds her arms with indignance. “We’re older and wiser! We don’t need protecting.”

Edric rolls his eyes. “We all need protecting sometimes Em. Besides,” he grins at Amity, “mittens is fierce. We need her protecting us, too.”

Emira sighs but as she turns to stare out the window, Amity and Ed both catch a glimpse of the smallest of smiles gracing her lips. They meet eyes; acknowledge each other for a moment longer before they all turn towards the window.

Her body feels warm, tingly. Her smile feels soft, natural. Everyone she loves is here in this room. The sunset outside of the window is gloriously orange. She has love in every part of her life, even if it’s not by the most conventional of means.

_That’s pretty special._

_Lucky me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for reading and supporting this fic!! Writing this has literally made me so much more comfortable with my writing style in general and has seriously made the last part of my long and boring summer/beginning of Autumn so much more fun. All your sweet comments make my heart swell because you're all so friggin nice and just AHHHH I'm so grateful for each and every one of your guy's support. 
> 
> AS ALWAYS if you would like to follow me on twitter it's @katthedoodle ! I also have a very small art insta which I might start using properly soon @katthedoodlecatcher !I'm not super active at the moment because I'm busy trying to survive my uni workload but I will try interact with anyone who would like to chat on there. x
> 
> ALSO I still don't know how to get rid of the pesky added on end notes but nope this is defintiely not the prologue this is the final installment of this series!
> 
> ALSO I will defintiely be writing more fics!! I don't know when but if you would like to follow along I would love your support and it would make me super happy :)
> 
> I hope that wherever you are you're having a wonderful time and staying safe. Big hugs and lots of love - Kat x
> 
> EDIT: THIS HAS 16K HITS UM WHAT?!?! I’M SO EMOTIONAL AND WORKING ON NEW STUFF RN!! I genuinely can’t believe people are reading this and enjoying it so much, BIG love to all of you!!!!! Xxx

**Author's Note:**

> PROLOGUE COMPLETE. 
> 
> I have planned this story to have 4-5 main parts and an epilogue (as well as this prologue). I don't know how consistently I'll be updating it but the longest updates should be no more than 1.5 weeks apart so stick around if you want to read this story, i would love to have you on the ride with me!
> 
> MY BABIES are so cute feel free to leave a comment and rave about Lumity with me ;;-;; <3
> 
> Until next time, keep safe and have a wonderful week! Lots of love xx


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